


Empty spaces

by blue_chocolate



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_chocolate/pseuds/blue_chocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Harry Styles is an astronomer who is also really bad at flirting, especially with the good-looking guy who works at the zoo and has eyes bluer than Neptune.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I'd just like to mention that I’m using Manchester as a town here, so if you know what it looks like there or live there then imagine it as a fictional city. I just needed a name. Annnd the title is from “The Show Must Go On” by Queen.
> 
> Also, there is a small playlist in the final notes of chapter four, if you'd like to check that out and have a listen while reading :)

When Harry was a kid he listened to Smashing Pumpkins while running around the house in his underwear, arms stretched out like it was some kind of great achievement. This was also the time he dreamt about being an astronaut. He thought that if he could touch a star and walk the moon he’d be happy.

The light addiction had most likely started when they were reading a book about space in kindergarten and one of the older ladies there had snatched the book, sat them all down on the dark blue carpet in the main room with crayons, half finished drawings of cats and dogs and snot rubbed all over it. “Let me tell you a story,” she’d told them with a kind smile and shut the light off, bringing out a globe that glowed in the dark and waving it around with her right hand while turning pages with her left. The tale was about this little kid named Jerry who decided that he wanted to know what a star really was.

He’d asked his mother and father several times what actually was up there on the blackening welkin, and they had said these strange things like “oh, it’s just your grandmother zooming past in her spaceship”, and he would respond with furrowed brows and a “but grandmother is dead, daddy”. They would then crouch down to his height and put their hands on his shoulder and look at him sympathetically, saying “yeah, she is, and she’s right up there, looking out for you so you eat your vegetables and don’t fall in harm’s way.”

So, having been indirectly ordered by the fictional Jerry, he swore that he would find out what the definition of a star was. This was, of course, a rather difficult task while he was seven years old and stuck in Cheshire with a rusty Volkswagen as his only form of transportation. And the fact that he couldn’t drive and wasn’t allowed to either. But these minor bumps in the road did not stop Harry Styles. He sat at home with his new books about the sun and galaxies he’d gotten for Christmas and birthday presents and read and studied until the early hours of the morning when he would fall down in pure exhaustion with his curls flopping down onto the blankets he was huddled up in while his face fell into Neptune.

When the talk about space and The Milky Way snuck into the classrooms and school halls he was bouncing around and doing happy little noises because yeah, Astronaut Harry Styles would finally be able to show off his experiences with black holes and voids of nothingness up above and perhaps learn something new; something that the seventy-four books he’d read hadn’t mentioned (and this was actually a great possibility as those books had been for five year olds with colourful illustrations and the fact that space was endless and so there should technically be a never ending amount of fact to write down?)

All other subjects in school were mildly interesting for the young boy with the spacesuit replica on his bedroom wall; that is all but the things involving shooting stars or comets or solar flares.

(Solar flares and other intimidating news and theories had scared the shit out of him in the beginning and he’d begun crying, his mother jogging up the stairs at the sound to sit on the side of his bed and stroke his forehead calmly with a cool palm while he vented to her about how the sun would swallow the Earth in a few year. His mother had then carefully scooted in the small spaceship standing on the shelf next to them between her son’s hands and made small puffing noises that were supposed to resemble an engine blasting off which merely coaxed a smile out of the child, and she’d told him softly and sincerely that while yes, it could happen, and it most likely would sometime during Earth’s existence, it would not happen as long as he was alive. She figured that it’d be best to be honest because her little boy was sure a smart one and he’d find out later without depending on what she chose to tell. Then, he probably knew more about space than her.)

His father used to take him out on small exploration trips into their garden during the weekends when he could stay up as there was no school tomorrow or things alike. (“Boys’ night” his father had excused with a chaste kiss to his mother’s lips before the two males were moving swiftly outside.) He would often hear his parents talk about the stargazing outside of his shut bedroom door. He’d curl up against the wall and turning on the gigantic Saturn lamp he’d earned by behaving for the entire year without getting into any strange or unpleasant situations (such as the time the school had called home because he’d shoved his friend’s head into a pile of dog shit and he’d gotten the double amount of homework he usually had as a punishment.)

His father would tell about how big his eyes got when a falling star pierced the sky, and how his chin dropped by several feet and his hands tugged fervently at the grass as he tried to contain the excitement he felt when spaceships (“it’s satellites Harry”) sailed in front of him. His mother would ask questions, like “wasn’t it cold?” or “you didn’t scare him with your dumb stories, right?” usually followed by a statement like “well, he sure seems happy up there”.

Harry couldn’t really argue.

Fast forward a handful of years and puberty hit. He noticed that all the others guys played off “that space-shit” as dorky and very un-cool, snickering when he passed through the hallways with his black and white “ask me how I moonwalk” t-shirt and unnaturally long fringe limiting the things he could see from underneath the hair. Every other pupil started throwing small balls of paper with silly love confessions on them across the classroom (these were, Harry discovered, utterly painful to get hit by.) And he himself sat hidden behind his desk with too short legs swinging back and forth and untied shoelaces dragging over the dirty floor, playing with his fingers and wondering if you could live on the moon.

While he did receive many taunting and wary glances and stares as he strolled up to his locker in torn baggy jeans he did not shut himself out or retreat to become invisible. As he didn’t fathom why everyone had a problem with him he continued to sit and read The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy for a good laugh and discuss his opinions on what now existent person was first going to reach Andromeda if they blasted off Earth today.

The only difference was that he did it by himself. Which, he may add, wasn’t that awful. It was always an airy silence around him and he was never interrupted by some jackass dashing by to throw a basketball in his face or spit on his grey sneakers.

Those previously highly popular space-shit topics died out; faded into background noise which echoed throughout crowded classrooms with thick air locked inside and followed every student around alike a gathering of sorrowful clouds over each and everyone’s head. Harry was still as excited as ever to come home and lie under a sea of stars in endless hours but did so with a somber ache deep within his chest. At that time he was still a young boy with an unexplored universe before his feet, dreaming about constellations and seeing Martians whenever in a place rich with people.

It was around the age of thirteen he realized that he was never going to be an astronaut. A whole line of “meaningful” and “important” and “wise” adults had told him not too kindly that the Astronaut profession was extremely difficult to grasp and that he’d most definitely die within a few days up there in his spaceship with a tube to pee in and levitating food to munch on. At first he had, of course, protested with a silly grin and said that no, he was going to be an astronaut and a damn good one at that.

This, however, was not the way things turned out.

Life played in his favour for most part of the time, pushing him to get an A on his exam and another three on the others; to get proper well-rest seven days a week and to be greatly brain active during studying and school hours.

Perhaps it did not get him to the point of floating in space, but it got him close enough.

 

It is sickening warm outside, a cerulean sky is braced high above his curls and it’s with awkwardly sweaty hands that he flicks on the air-condition of his home. With one shoe on his doormat and the other out in the somewhat cool air Harry is not sure in which direction his heart tugs him. Keys are already dangling from his soft fingertips and the look on him with shades up in his hair and white tee is fitting and acceptable to wear on a day like this, so the choice should be fairly easy.

He has never been a decision-maker. It can be anything from what sort of colour is his absolute favourite, top no.1 to what his opinions on the afterlife are, or what he should make for dinner the week after this one. Never does he come to a satisfying decision, and so he spends minutes – or hours, even – to think about what he could have done if he’d walked instead of taking a taxi or if he ruined his give-away quiche with the second teaspoon of salt.

But the sun is radiating happiness and it is late June and the last week before work kicks off again so Harry lifts his left foot out and places it uncertainly on the steps as he locks the door.

Speaking of work; new pictures have been invading his mail along with cryptic messages from Niall about subjects and terms he has forgotten during his break, and this together with the pile of preparations for several months of work ahead creates a stressful environment, he has bitterly concluded. Still he can’t help but feel giddy as he sees the polished, glistening telescopes and maps behind his eyelids. The things are haunting him, is the thing, and nowadays he can’t even blink without notice a flash of Orion or Hydra. _This is my life_.

His hands are spreading out wide in the shorts pockets and playing with his phone when he makes his way down the pavement and across the road – to wherever his feet desires to carry him and further. People are filling up the streets and his steps turn into a dance as he avoids bumping into old men and women with trolleys pressing forward.

A faint taste of bacon in his mouth reminds him that he forgot to brush his teeth and for a moment he stops, in the middle of the flooded pavement where men and women just manages to avoid his tall figure. It’s a longer distance to home than there is to the rest of the city, and so it is with reluctant steps that he once more starts walking with eyes searching the areas around him. There is no particular destination in his mind and he finds himself being pulled to the centre of everything and a large sign that reads **MANCHESTER ZOO** with a lot of exotic animals running around the thick orange letters.

The inside is huge with concrete pillars connecting the fences to each enclosure; an information desk under a petite roof stands in front of a giant tree and all children are running towards the ice-cream stand at the end of the path. Signs are pointing in different directions to show where the animals are and keep the visitors out of trouble.

The man who walks up to him is wearing a nametag and a dark green uniform Harry suspects is obligatory to wear during work hours. He’s fairly tall but still has to crane his neck the tiniest bit to look into Harry’s eyes, lips displaying that kind of discreet smile that makes your bones rattle with warmth.

“Excuse me sir, are you looking for something?” he questions carefully, as if to not disturb Harry’s stiff position in the crowd around him, “perhaps I can help?” The man is gorgeous.

“Oh,” Harry says, and that’s really all his throat can croak out, “I, er, yeah, I was just.” He takes a small, well-needed pause, and continues with a sigh. “Actually, can you show me where the tigers are?” Good going.

But he can’t have made a complete fool out of himself because the man nods lightly and says “yes, of course. This way,” and so they’re walking through the zoo with a mere inches between their bodies. The man huffs when they turn left to the gigantic sign with **ASIA** on it. “Stubborn little shits.”

“What?” The man glances at him, taking his confusion with delightful amusement.

“Tigers. All felines, really. They won’t show themselves for the visitors or come out when dinner’s due and they are annoyingly keen on climbing the rocks in the back and bathing in the pond.” He shakes his head in a near fond manner, giving off the impression that he was raised in the Indian forest and brought up by a long line of predators. “Bloody cute they are. So, you into cats?”

Harry stops himself from stuttering with a little more willpower than he thought to possess before this day. “Yeah. My aunt had a house full of ‘em.”

“Yourself then?”

“Nah.” His lips quirk up at how interested this man sounds, fascinated by Harry’s life. “My father was allergic.”

“Oh, pity. They’re fantastic.”

They’ve stopped in front of a large circular enclosure with a minor mountain in the back on which several orange and black striped creatures lie on, lazily yawning and rolling around. Harry sees two cubs attacking each other and biting on their mother’s pointy ear.

“Well, there you go.” Harry turns to see the man shift his weight and study his dark shoes before once more meeting Harry’s gaze. “Just call if you need anything else. I’d be happy to help.” Harry nods and watches the male turn on his heels and disappear into the crowd again. His feet carry him faster than his brain can comprehend, and soon his fingers curl around the man’s bicep.

“Hey, uh, sorry to, yeah, but would you mind telling me a bit about cats?” It sounds stupid in his head and it sounds idiotic from his lips. “Like, the signs tell a lot but not by far enough, if you don’t have anything else to do because I could just google it.” He bites his lip before he spills something else that will be much harder to unsay. The amusement seems to be back to a current expression in the man’s baby blue eyes.

“Okay, no sure, just tell me what you’d like to know. Felines, cats or tigers – first of all?”

Harry nearly laughs.

“Start with the tigers then.” The man gently grasps his wrist and pulls him along out onto the grass which Harry strongly believes belongs to the constricted areas of the zoo. He keeps quiet.

“Know anything about cats? The small, tame ones, I mean.”

“A few basic stuff; probably nothing of what you know.”

The man chuckles quietly and gazes in through the fence to see a tiger float out into the pond in the left front of the enclosure and close its eyelids at the pleasant change of temperature. “You make it sound like I’m some kind of expert.”

“Thought you were?” Harry tries and fails to focus at something other than the man’s pinkish lips.

“Not really.” The man turns to Harry again who immediately averts his gaze upwards and sees the other male point at one of tigers lying on a block just feet above the surface of the pond. “These are all Bengal tigers, straight from Bangladesh I think. Um, I’m not really sure what you know so just stop me if you’ve heard it before, yeah?”

Harry nods.

“Okay, so their natural habitat isn’t Manchester of course, but South Asia, like India, Malaysia, Thailand and so on.”

That’s how it starts and continues and Harry is mesmerized by the man’s silvery voice and the way his tongue forms words – perhaps too much as he doesn’t register a single thing that’s being said. This he will come to deny for months and months but at moment he just nods along and doesn’t glance at the tigers once because there is a pair of lovely azure eyes in his field of vision that are too stunning to ignore.

“Sorry,” the man says and locks his gaze on the grass between their feet.

“What?” Harry asks; the confusion returning. Pay attention.

“I don’t know what I’m talking about, ‘s all a load of gibberish. It’s probably better if you google it or read the signs or, yeah. Sorry.”

“No, I, its okay. You’re good.”

“At speaking? Because I sort of learned that as a kid-“

“No – I mean. Well, yeah. I know more about tigers now. So.”

The man lets a laugh puff from his mouth and he gazes up at Harry. “Thanks, I suppose.”

There is a woman bouncing down the path leading up to them and the tigers, blonde hair curved down over her small shoulders and flying behind her as she scurries forward. Her amber eyes are rather wild-looking, snapping around in search until they spot the two men up front. Her expression then starts to vary between one of relief and irritation and Harry sees the man turn to face her from the corner of his eye.

“There you are,” she breathes without sparing a single gaze on Harry. He covers up his eyes with the shades in his hair. “Simon is looking for you-“

“Shit,” the man interrupts with only seems to stress the woman further.

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” the woman is quick to add and only now does she take a look at Harry. He smiles awkwardly and closes his eyes behind the sunglasses to avoid hers.

“It, uh, was something about Lynette going missing or something.”

“Shit,” the man repeats and absent-mindedly plays with the hem of his uniform.

“Yeah,” the woman agrees and cocks her hip in an impatient way, “so will you come along or are you gonna keep on seducing fancy-pants here?”

“Hey,” the man protests before Harry can even blink, “no need to attack visitors.” At this the woman actually seems human as she huffs out a breath and once again attempts to glance through Harry’s shades.

“Come on then, I’m sure that if Lynette’s on the loose then Victor and Adriana are as well.”

“Yeah, ‘m coming. You go ahead.”

It’s with a final lightly judgmental look towards the man that she turns on her heels and stomps off, arms flailing by her sides alike a penguin about to set off from the ground and dive through the air.

The man faces Harry again with a deep apologetic look. “Sorry about her, she didn’t mean-“

“It’s fine,” Harry cuts him off with a small smile that’s not genuine by far. The man senses this.

“Still; she shouldn’t have.”

“It’s fine,” Harry says once more. The man stares blankly at him, then nods and smacks his tongue.

“Okay. Well, I need to go fetch a few kangaroos.”

“Kangaroos?”

“Yeah. Seems like they’ve escaped again and these things never do turn out well.”

Harry stops himself from asking _again?_ and bounces a bit on his toes.

“Bye, then,” the man says with a tiny nod. Harry pushes back his shades till they’re stuck in his curls again and grasps his right wrist to prevent a wave.

“Bye.”

Harry does wave though, when the man is out of sight and long gone – he raises his hand and shakes it slowly like a ragdoll before letting it drop to his side and gaze at the tigers.

He twists his shoe into the grass and tears off a few straws right as he makes his way back to the other visitors who are observing and pointing at turtles and crocodiles in the large reptile house in the middle of the entire zoo.

 

Harry returns to the zoo three days later, looking somewhat sharp with his jeans plastered to his legs and tattoos peeking out from underneath his just about transparent shirt. Perhaps he did spend forty minutes and a half fixing his mad hair and brushed his teeth three times; perhaps he had picked out clothes to wear the night before, but this was simply casual behaviour for the twenty-three year old. Very. Casual. And then there was, of course, the fact that he hoped to walk home with the cute staff member’s phone number but that was irrelevant.

He had yet to speak to Niall about this and had miraculously managed to avoid it the first day at the observatory with the older male staring over his back like a hawk. (And sure, Niall only wanted to see what the heck his friend had decided to spy on this time but Harry could never be too careful.)

Niall, you see, is alike the tigers of the Manchester Zoo – a stubborn little shit; and a nosy one at that. There can be named several occasions where that man has ruined everything by saying something he’s not supposed to know or being “too oblivious” about said secret. Now, it’s not exactly a secret that Harry fancies the blue eyed man at the zoo, it’s just that Niall hasn’t asked anything about Harry’s break and the younger male tends to keep it that way as long as possible so that Niall will not start to meddle. He may be best friend with the man for all Harry knows. Long story short; Niall knows half of the town. They can walk from work on a Tuesday night and Niall will stop and chat with the drunk stumbling past them and give Harry an obligatory glance and an “oh yeah, me and Janet went to preschool together.” Yes? He thinks, and how is that information going to help me home in time to watch Air Crash Investigation? It won’t, is the answer, but Niall brings up memory after memory with this drunk and eventually Harry sneaks away without drawing any kind of attention to him as he strolls back to his house in the pitch black.

Niall tends to pry into other’s minds and business, and this is something that Harry has learnt the hard way. Niall is, also, a very funny and genuine guy, which is why Harry found it rather easy to befriend him all those years ago. Niall is Niall. Seems fitting.

Rain has started dancing around him when he enters through the gate and sees families with thick black umbrellas over their heads. Harry’s shoes will be soaked when he falls into his house later, but he’s here on a mission and it’s his intention to walk away with a new contact in his phone.

It takes about twenty minutes to spot the man from three days prior and by that time Harry’s hair is hanging down on all sides of his face and he angrily removes it every two seconds to actually see something. The man stands under a yellow umbrella held by a redhead with black coat over her shoulders to partly cover her up from the water surrounding her body and partly to hide the uniform. And, well, Harry admits that the uniform as a whole is pretty hideous. The man spots him before Harry has even acknowledged their existence and saunters over to him with the redhead in hand to shield away from the weather and with a light smile grazing his lips that seem darker now that the sun is gone.

“Hi,” he says.

For a single moment Harry forgets how to speak but composes himself with a flick of his dripping curls.

“Hello.”

Harry is a geek. Lies awake for hours reading Science Illustrated and thinks about what would be the best addition to that crossword he’s creating in his free time, has never learnt to use a washing machine and can’t flirt with people for all he’s worth. So, really, when he woke up this morning with a determined thought in his head he did not think it through as well as he should have.

“Oh,” the man exclaims and spins around to the redhead who now has a bad hidden grin playing on her features, “Candice, this is, um.”

This, Harry thinks – supposes, this is my chance to make a better impression than _would you mind telling me a bit about cats, oh you handsome thing._

“Harry,” is what he says with a confirming shake of his head.

“Yeah, this is Harry, he’s a cat expert.” He says is with such pride, like Harry is his first born who’s just won the Nobel Prize. The redhead giggles – a lovely but quiet sound in the roughness of the rain from everywhere – and eyes him up and down. Harry does his best to not squirm under her gaze. At least she seems please enough.

“Learnt from the best.” And it’s a mystery to why that is what tumbles out of his mouth. Both the man and Candice the Redhead laughs softly at that, so Harry is safe for now.

“So, back to learn about apes?” the man asks. Candice bounces on his toes and observes in silence with smooth eyebrows lifting the slightest.

“I was, er, can we walk for a bit?” he wonders with a lip bite at the end – the perfect way to stop bullshit from swirling out. The man seems confused for a second but then nods and glances at Candice as if asking for permission.

“Okay. I’ll be back in thirty minutes Didi.” The last part is directed to the woman who hands them her umbrella and pulls a grey hood over her red hair, creating lava welling up from a large mountain.

As they walk their hands brush in the constricted space of dryness and Harry thinks about good lines to utter. _Hey, you’re gorgeous and I’d like to have your phone number so we can talk whenever and get to know each other and I’m not a creep at all,_ or, _yes hello I find you absolutely breathtaking and I forgot to ask you about your phone number last time which was very stupid of me because you seem like a lovely guy and I was wondering if you’d like to talk to me again sometime?_ Or, of course, _hey sexy, wanna make out?_

None of these appeal the young man so he sticks to swallowing down lump after lump and dreading the end of their thirty minutes.

“Anything on your mind?” the man asks and, okay, his voice is sweeter than Harry’s grandmother’s jam which will make your teeth rot.

“I’ve never been here before,” Harry hums, “at the zoo, I mean. Not until three days ago. It’s kinda weird how I missed it.”

“You live here then?”

“Yeah, up on Blaker Street. Hey.” They stop in front of a large board displaying a white shark so Harry turns his back to it and cocks his head. “I was supposed to ask you something.”

“Oh?” the man inquires with a tint of curiosity. Harry wishes he’d been one of the cool kids in school and learnt the art of seduction.

“Would you. Would you mind exchanging phone numbers?” His voice is so tight and uncomfortable and he is fumbling with his fingers. This can just not end well. “If, like, you, yeah.” Brilliant.

“No, I, yeah that’d be cool,” the man replies and Harry just about drops his chin to the ground because hnng. “You have your cell…?”

“Oh, yes I do.” Harry nearly falls over himself as he fishes out his phone with long fingers from his back pocket and unlocks it to hand to the male in front of him, receiving another phone while doing so. He types himself in as the plain _Harry_ and hopes that the man will remember him by that only. Gazing up he sees that gentle smile back on the man’s lips who hands him his own phone with a number and _Louis :)_ shining up at him from the screen. It’s warm in the rain, those five letters and the blue eyes setting his cheeks ablaze with their beaming.

 

Harry goes back to work the next Wednesday with his phone practically glued to his palm. Niall is dancing with himself outside of the observatory and breaks out into the largest and fullest bloody grin Harry has ever seen, jumping into the younger’s arms and clinging to his body like a child and Harry can only ramble on about how it’s _only been three weeks and a half fucking hell Ni calm yourself._ Niall is so carefree and happy and it takes a maximum of fifteen minutes until Harry has to double over in laughter from some dumb joke his friend’s told, to which Niall only crinkles his eyes and pats his back lightly in comfort and a _no really, calm yourself_ manner.

Everything inside is just like Harry remembers it to be; his favourite place in the entire room standing untouched and having been so for weeks and weeks as he’s been away. It makes his heart heat up the tiniest bit and his eyes glister with excitement to be back. At least that’s a few of the things his fellow co-workers mention as he saunters by with the world’s confidence in his steps and shadow and Niall strutting after with a grin behind his fantasy trail of success.

Harry is left at peace up until lunch when Niall accidentally spots his phone, which he should have probably have put away ‘cause he’s done about 60% percent of the work he usually gets done during this time. They’re sliding down on a few benches underneath a gigantic oak in the small outside garden oak and it’s when Harry bites into his sandwich for all he’s worth that Niall’s finger fly over the table and closes the distance between him and Harry’s phone. He takes it as he is still unnoticed by the young astronomer and, oh, how convenient isn’t it that his messages are open for him to skim through?

“OH,” he lets out and Harry is fearfully torn away to watch Niall stand up abruptly and swing himself up on a low hanging branch, holding a phone in his hand that most definitely belongs to Harry. (Niall is ridiculously smart with the thing despite not having one of his own, but he’s stolen Harry’s so many times now that he may as well be co-owner of it.)

“Niall?” Harry utters in his usual confusion and Niall swaps position so that he’s hanging by his legs twisted over the branch and his spiky hair shooting down towards the petunia below him.

“ _OH_ ,” he repeats and Harry swallows what feels like a tonne of cheese and tomatoes and tiptoes forth. At this his friend falls harshly to the ground with a _crack_ coming from his back as he lands. Despite this Niall runs around Harry to stand atop the table by which they ate and stare wide-eyed at the screen in his hands.

“Niall, what- oh Christ. Niall, give me that thing. Niall you- _Niall_.”

Niall allows Harry to snatch the phone back with a blush to his cheeks and the man on the table smiles at him slyly; as if he knows the components of the krabby patty or has the tools to make everyone around him disappear without a trace.

“Ha-“

“Don’t take my phone,” Harry protests pathetically with a light pout and horror swimming in his eyes as he reads through previous conversations.

“Harry.”

“Niall.”

“Louis.”

“Stop.”

“Nu-uh. Who’s Louis?”

Harry groans and falls onto the bench again, his phone locked and tightly grasped in his large shaking hand.

“I do believe I have the right to know who the father of your children-“

“ _Hold your fucking horses_ ,” Harry says with a little more tone to it than he intended, but Niall is grinning so no harm done. He stands up and starts pacing around in front of the table and Niall who’s now seated criss-cross and listening intently. They’re bathing in golden sunshine and birds are chirping and it is in a situation like this that Harry would normally stop breathing and admire his surroundings but now is really not the time. Code red.

“First of all,” he starts listing; Niall watching him carefully with glee written all over him, “Louis is not ‘the father of my children’, neither are we attracted to each-“

“Okay, that’s bullshit,” Niall cuts him off with a humorous snort and Harry cocks his hip and head, “like, I don’t know, have you seen your conversations? There are enough winking smileys and hidden heart eyes to take over America and you still claim that you’re not even remotely drawn to each other in some way?” Harry gapes. Niall smiles triumphantly and springs up from the table to poke his chest with his index finger. “That, my dear friend, is bullshit.”

“ _And_ none of your business,” Harry says in an attempt to brush it off and walks around the shorter male to munch on his lunch once more.

“Oh but _it is_ ,” Niall persists and snatches the sandwich from Harry before he has the chance to sink his teeth into the bread.

“Don’t you dare; I’ll _skin you_.”

“Cute,” Niall laughs and eats his food on top of everything. This break has turned out in the worst way possible. “So, what’s he like?” He has his mouth full so the words almost pass Harry without registering.

“Oh, I, eh, yeah, he’s nice.”

“Your fucking hair is blushing mate,” Niall tells him and Harry sends him a glare.

“Nu-uh.”

“You want to kiss him,” Niall states plainly.

“Do not.”

“You want to have his children.”

“Do _not_.”

“You want to meet his family-“

“No.”

“- and wake up with him on Christmas-“

“Please stop.”

“- and snog under the mistletoe because you fucking can.”

Harry is silent.

“Hah.”

“Niall,” Harry rolls his eyes and pushes the other male back down, “sit. Now, let me tell you story. There once was a boy named Harry-“

“Destined to be a star, his parents were killed by-“ Harry hits him; a fine red shape of a hand forming on his friend’s jaw.

“Fucking hell?” Niall mumbles, stunned.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Harry says sweetly as Niall glowers at him and rubs his jaw, “I do not want to have his children, thank you very much, nor do I want to snog him or make myself familiar with the Tomlinson’s-“

“LOUIS TOMLINSON,” Niall belts out at the top of his voice. Birds are escaping from the trees and bushes around them in desperate search for safety and a haven where there are no screaming Niall’s.

“ _WHAT?_ ” Harry yells back.

“I KNOW HIM.” Lovely.

“No, no you fucking don’t,” Harry huffs and Niall’s grin disappears temporarily.

“You’re right,” he nods, “but my mate David you see, his girlfriend’s best friend knows him. So tell me oh bestest friend; what the hell were you doing at the zoo?”

“You know this town inside and fucking out, don’t you?” Harry says with a heavy sigh.

“Pretty much yeah,” Niall chirps, “alright listen mate, I’m actually gonna give some piece of awesome advice. You plan to hear me out.” Harry nods faintly. “Well good for you. Okay, you text him and tell him to meet you at a fancy restaurant for dinner and you’re going to insist on paying because you’re a gentleman and hopefully you’ll snog outside if you’ve been good. There, happy ending.”

“I don’t _want to snog him_.” Harry doesn’t know why Niall cannot get this through his thick skull.

“But you do. You really, really do.” Harry gives up.

“I do. I really, really, really do Niall.” He whimpers and lets his head fall into his hands in utter defeat. “I want to just hold him and kiss him and cuddle with him and he’s so fucking beautiful and _his smile_ -“

“Woah,” Niall mutters in a long exhale before he slumps next to the taller male, “didn’t think you’d ever admit it. Oh, er, how about this then. You do as I told you to and make sure to be subtle, alright? Or else he’ll think you’re a horny creep on a quest to-“

“Continue.” Harry swallows and wipes away the for now non-existent tears in his eyes.

“Er, right. Lots of compliments and small touching in places fit to be touched on a first date, and try to memorize little things about him that you can tell him and I guarantee that he’ll fall to his knees for you in a matter of days.”

“ _Niall_.”

“Oh Jesus fucking Christ, not in that way you pervert.”

Harry stares sincerely into his eyes and displays a closed mouthed smile with hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

 

So, after Harry has spent hours rolling around on his bed and glancing through the telescope standing proudly in his large living room window he has managed to unlock his phone and stare at the last messages he and Louis sent to each other. He doesn’t do anything with it though; just sort of lies and stares at the screen to determine whether to text him or not. Niall’s words are going through his head over and over and Harry wants to punch him again – preferably to plant a mark on the Irishman’s fair complexion that’s one or two shades lighter than Harry’s own and make it stay there.

Why can’t Niall just text him? No, no. No. Bad idea.

Harry flips himself over again so that he’s facing the well enlightened hallway that leads up to his living room and the small telescope standing there. His chin is buried in the pillow he uses for increased countenance over the areas in front of him and the bright screen is shooting out the letters printed on there like his brain is made to make these kinds of decisions and press himself into move his thumbs. It gives the same feeling as if he’s standing alone and naked on a stage in front of five thousand people who are all laughing hysterically and, okay, he will admit that he’s not the athlete but sure his body doesn’t look _that_ bad? _Laughably_ bad? There are only less than a handful of people he can trust enough to bring up this issue with (basically his mother, Niall, work-Nick and work-Celine) and none of them will be comfortable enough (or suited) to give an honest answer.

Once again he lets the phone travel between his fingers before stilling and he types, deletes and retypes in a span of one minute and a half until he throws the thing between the covers and bounces up on his toes to slap some sense into himself. Quite literally. It’s so easy for him to see Louis before his eyes; so easy to imagine pulling him into an embrace and kiss him and simply hold him there forever. Harry doesn’t think he’ll be able to let go if it comes to that.

The two have been talking nonstop ever since they exchanged phone numbers and every other message sends Harry’s heart into cardiac arrest because of the casual ;) Louis almost always adds – as Niall so kindly mentioned the other day. And, of course, that means Harry will have to reply with his own. (He doesn’t want to think about the time Louis’ fingers slipped and he sent a big heart-eyed emoji who also made kissing motions. No, that he doesn’t speak of.)

Louis is so awful at texting though, up to the point where Harry sometimes mistakes the so called sentences for his fake niece’s or something. But it is him; it all belongs to that blue-eyed man at the zoo because the contents aren’t _that_ childish. (Harry tries to not think about that either.) Louis is also very, very, unbelievably wonderful and it takes but a lift of his pinky for Harry to swoon. The way he talks (well, types) is so genuine and clever in a way and just about every sentence makes Harry giggle – but he doesn’t because he’s a fully grown man and men do not giggle, no – and he has like this veil of well-fed optimism around him that could never irritate Harry even the slightest.

This worries the older male. Louis is only twenty and innocent and Harry is three years older and bitter _as fuck_ over these little things which were all out of his control before they even appeared on his map and Louis is fucking _tiny_ and Harry really wants to have his own mini Louis to follow him everywhere and stargaze with him and Louis is so, so bright and full of everything Harry isn’t and Harry just doesn’t know how to take this all in and process into useful information.  It goes beyond his understanding.

Louis’ name continues to look back at him with a little :) added after it and he tears his eyes away from the bed and stares determinedly straight ahead and into the black and white photograph of three elephants walking over an old stone bridge he got as a birthday present from his old friend Jeanne. They haven’t spoken to each other since. But, the picture was nice and Harry’s walls had a severe lack of decorations. So.

The house is always empty except for Harry’s singing by the oven in the mornings and the screams of frustrations drawn out of him from work in the evenings. He has tried playing music on a low volume but it either ends up at an obnoxiously high level or he gets sick of the same songs playing over and over. Sometimes he yanks out the contact a little too violently.

He is tired of his house. There are too many memories etched into the forgotten piano by the far end of his storage room and hidden in between the pages of each book in his bookshelf, but at the same time it’s just that, those little things, that keep him stuck here within the buildings grasp to rot and shield away from the outside world and all events taking place there.

Harry dives into his bed and quickly texts Louis an invitation to trot around Manchester before he has the time to worry and change his mind. Two minutes later he’s making his way through the early wave of Friday workers going home from their responsibilities and they all walk a little too gracefully with light, flying steps over the stone beneath their feet – all so happy to have two days of well-earned rest and the time of their lives to stuff their faces and sleep day out and day in. Harry doesn’t bother to ponder of this though. He has a date. He likes to pretend that he has a date, anyway. _It’s basically the same thing._

Louis comes into his vision by the time he passes the supermarket, smile large and shining through the dullness of town as he skips towards Harry and pulls him into a warming hug which Harry returns in surprise. Perhaps he holds Louis a beat or two too long and notices the scent of cinnamon he bears with him, and if he does he sure as hell isn’t going to excuse himself. Not as long as Louis continues to pay attention to him.

They walk and talk for hours, watch the sun set together at the small park in town with an infinitesimal hill rising there, and it’s really the eight wonder of the world that Harry doesn’t let his inner thoughts shoot out of his mouth like cannonballs. All it takes is for him to open his mouth a little too long a little too wide and then Louis will be bombarded by secrets hiding deep within the older male that has cocooned themselves to keep him from the embarrassment that will be evident when Louis finds out that Harry can’t keep his attention away from the shorter’s lips, eyes and tongue. The eye-part is at least understandable, if Louis would figure out the mechanical works inside Harry’s brain. He could easily blame that on having a disorder that causes him to stare too intently and pay severe attention to whatever may come his way. The lips and tongue thing will be harder to brush off.

“Who are you?” Louis says one time, when the sun is just dipping down at its lowest, tasting the horizon with sensitive taste buds.

“What do you mean?” Harry questions and leans back on his palms that are collecting dirt and ripping of straws of grass as he slips back.

“Like, you’re Harry Styles, you have a mum and dad and you live on Blaker Street. That can’t possibly be all there is to you, right?” And Harry shakes his head slowly after a shrug and leans forward again to glance at the petite male by his side.

“I’m an astronomer,” he says and Louis’ eyebrows just about disappear into his hair.

“Really now?”

“Yup. And, uh, well, my best friend is Irish.”

“Horan?” Louis asks with newfound interest and Harry’s blood instantly runs cold.

“You know him?” he almost whispers in horror and Louis laughs – a clear sound that shoots straight into Harry’s heart like a broken arrow from Cupid.

“Not personally, but everyone knows Niall. Didn’t know you two socialized though.”

“Yeah, well he’s my colleague.”

“No way,” Louis beams and Harry bites his lip in time to stop the _yes way_ from slipping out. He nods instead.

“He said his – let’s see if I remember this correctly – mate David’s girlfriend’s best friend knows you?” Louis furrows his brows.

“Well, I don’t know a David, but that’s good to know,” and then he’s chuckling again, his eyes crinkling and with the golden sunlight bouncing in and out of his irises Harry is sure he’s going to faint.

“Yourself then?” Harry asks and Louis stares at him for a moment before gazing into the sunset with half-lidded eyes.

“I… love puzzles, sweets and my mother and sisters say I’m quite messy.” _Yikes._

“So that’s Louis Tomlinson?” Louis hums and smacks his tongue in reply. He flips himself around to make his back face Harry’s front and then falls into the taller’s lap with closed eyes and relaxes to bathe in the late evening light.

“Can you guess my zodiac sign by just looking at me?” he wonders. Harry is too busy thinking about what Louis’ hair would feel like between his fingertips.

“I’m sorry, no,” he mumbles distractedly and notices that he’s nibbling on his bottom lip again. Not that he can help it.

“Well,” Louis sighs softly and yawns a bit, “You’ll just have to figure it out then.”


	2. Chapter 2

It has been a while since he last spoke to Louis physically (three days on another walk – a thing that has quickly evolved to become their “thing”) and it has been about two hours since they last texted each other ( _from Louis :): lotts s callin my atention, gotta go H :( xx_ ) and Harry has been procrastinating work ever since. Niall has also been texting him – and calling – which has ended up in frustrated messages that could use a large dose of censoring to cover up all the _cunt, dick, twat’s_ and so on. Harry would usually answer these text and calls, but Niall will more than likely bug the shit out of him or ask twenty questions about Louis that turns into fifty and a hundred, blah, blah, and Harry can’t deal with this.

Life isn’t so caring of him this day though, because it’s Monday and he has about thirteen minutes until he needs to be at the observatory to glare at pictures of some new constellation that’s been discovered and he _couldn’t care any less even if he tried_. He only waits for Niall to start blabbering on about how Louis is a bad influence on the twenty-three year old who’s now blaming illness to skip work and text his crush all day long – but then again, perhaps Niall has already done so and Harry has just ignored his texts?

When he bursts through the door to work he doesn’t see a single trace of his Irish mate – which should worry him but it doesn’t – so he strolls up to where the files he’s going to look through are scattered and in some magical way his phone slides into his hand again and his fingers swipe over the screen to reveal Louis’ name shining up on him. He knows that it’s physically impossible, but the letters still seem to smile widely at him and he’s unaware of the large grin spreading across his red lips.

His small illusion of peace and quiet is suddenly ruined by Niall landing a hand on his shoulder with a “hello H-man”. Harry jumps out of his skin in terror and the phone flies between his fingers before he can finally still and stare at his best friend with nothing but pure hate and agony in his eyes.

“No, fuck you,” he says and tries to calmly sits down on a nearby chair, his heartbeat still zooming down at 200 on a highway with no brakes.

“Good morning,” Niall chimes and it’s with a heavy sigh from Harry that he falls down on the chair opposite him.

“H-man is awful,” Harry then points out. Niall shrugs in a _fuck you too_ way so he drops it.

“So tell me,” Niall says seriously and stares firmly into Harry’s eyes, “why have you not named blue-eyes ‘husband’ on your phone yet, and why aren’t you skipping work to be with him right this second, by the way?”

“Louis?” Harry asks as casually as he’s able to – which proves to be very little when he feels his cheeks turn into Christmas lights and Niall’s lips quirk up even further. “Oh, yeah, he’s fine. Had something to do with his sister today.”

“That’s right, he’s got a whole litter of kids doesn’t he?”

“ _Sisters_ ,” Harry corrects, “And I guess. He’s a busy man.”

“Man? Harry, he’s a kid.”

“He’s _twenty_.”

“Yeah? Tell me more.”

“He’s-“ Harry stops himself from jumping to Louis’ defence right there and watches Niall as he chuckles because _oh fucking no_. “That’s not- I-“

“ _Oh my God Niall, Louis is so great,_ ” Niall squeals as he shoots up from his seat and flips the chair over as he earns all of the otherwise handful gazes present in the room, “ _you should hear him talk, and his smile, AND HIS EYES NIALL, CHRIST, I’D LIKE TO FU-_ “ Harry runs out of the room before he has the chance to hear the continuation of that sentence and slumps panting against the walls of the building. Light grey clouds are scattered everywhere above his head and sailing northwest from what he determine with his eyes. He shakes his curls loose where he leans as he runs his fingers through them.

“Niall is a bitch,” he says to himself and nods. In the middle of town is the zoo he knows, and if he watches closely then he can see the area clearly if though closer to the horizon than himself.

His phone buzzes in his back pocket and he feels a warmth seep into his bones in expectation to see a new message from Louis. Perhaps this is why he almost throws the device into the concrete beneath him when he receives one from Niall where it says _sorry ok? just come inside again. u need to look at this._ So, with a few deep breaths Harry returns back to his place in the observatory and pretends to not notice all the side-glances of worry and humour that are thrown at him when Niall puts an arm around him.

“What did you want me to look at?” Harry mumbles and can’t help but tense under Niall’s flesh on him.

“Nothing, just figured that you didn’t want to be outside when the rain and thunder hit.”

“I, uh, it’s like, sunny outside, Niall.”

“Well yeah,” Niall snorts and manoeuvres the S.S. Styles over to the window where he makes gestures to the darkening clouds, “but study those clouds like you study Louis’ lips and you would have figured it out by now.” Harry groans something inaudible and lets his head fall against the glass, which once more causes several heads to turn towards the pair.

“Really, fuck you Niall,” he grumbles. Niall’s laugh rings out clearly in the room.

“Oh c’mon big guy, it’s not that embarrassing.”

“It is,” Harry talks back and twists himself to stare at his friend but with his feet still facing the window. “I think I’m going to cry.”

“No. No, no, no.” Niall pats his shoulder slowly, stroking it like it’s one of his precious old cats whose death is due in an hour. Harry observes him sceptically.

“Well, you sure as hell aren’t helping,” he huffs and smacks the hand away just as his phone buzzes again. This is my phone, he thinks, and since Niall is right here it can’t be him who’s texting. He rips the phone up again and nearly knocks Niall over with an uppercut, but it’s all so worth it because of the _i get off from work in 1 hour, d u wanna hang out? xx_ from Louis.

“Niall,” he breathes and grips the male by his arms, stares into his sea eyes with his own grassy ones, “I am going to claim I’m sick in a moment and you’re going to let me go because you love me, okay?” Niall nods slowly. I have a date, is the only thing going through Harry’s brain as he saunters over to inform the other’s of his coming absence. I have a date, he thinks when he stands outside of the observatory in the golden rain and then he laughs.

 

Louis actually shows up at his doorstep when the clock hits 17.43 and Harry is nowhere near as presentable as he wishes to be. Louis, on the other hand, is just exquisite. With his dark Leeds tee, skinny jeans and messy hairstyle Harry could drop and bow to him in the matter of a second and a half. Louis doesn’t seem to notice this though, so Harry pulls him in for a long lasting hug while at the same time moving them both inside his house with small wobbling steps. He almost feels a tear fall from his eye when he realizes that Louis most likely wants to let go and look at him steadily as if to point out _friend_ with a thousand neon signs. But the thing is that Louis doesn’t move, just starts humming along to the faint music playing from Harry’s iPhone dock and soon they’re swaying gently from side to side.

Harry can rest his chin atop Louis’ head if he wants to, but he doesn’t for many reasons listed – like unwritten rules in the air between them. Louis melts into his body as they swirl around in his kitchen (with dishes all over the table and piling up to form the Alps in the sink with spoons and forks acting as skiers where they skid down) and Harry sighs happily, hoping that Louis doesn’t feel him squeeze a little tighter. Then again, perhaps he does.

They pull away from each other – although still tangled together with their arms – and Harry almost starts to coo over how short and overall small Louis is compared to him.

“Hello Harry,” he says quietly but if he’d been louder Harry would have received a stroke and fallen dead on his very own floor, and there is really no such embarrassment like that.

“Hi,” he breathes in reply with blown eyes, surely. Louis chuckles and lets his nails scrape lightly over Harry’s palm as he moves back. He doesn’t even need to try, does he? “You ready?” Harry gulps.

“I, yeah, in a sec.” Then he disappears away into the bathroom with a mumbled excuse and checks to see if the door locks after him before leaning over the sink and staring at his reflection in disbelief. When the water starts running he cups his hand into a bowl and dips his face down to clear the mist in his brain.

“So I was thinking,” Louis suddenly speaks through the door, sending Harry tumbling to the floor in surprise and he hits the back of his head on the toilet lid with a silent curse, “it’s said to rain later again, and I was wondering if it’d be okay to go to Arabella’s instead?” Harry’s hand frantically but gently rubs at his head and he recognizes the name as a pub in town, so why not?

“Yeah, sure,” he says with a little pained voice. He groans inwardly when he hears Louis’ low laugh once again.

“You okay in there?” And no, not really, no. He’s far from okay.

“Yes,” he says quickly and stands on wobbling legs with a spot of his neck throbbing from the collision with the toilet. “I am so fucking fine Louis, you have absolutely no fucking idea you cute little shit-“

“Harry?”

“YEAH,” Harry says as he blinks harshly to recompose himself.

“Nothing,” Louis informs. Okay. “Just… are you talking to yourself?” No, no, absolutely not.

“Yeah, a little bit,” he admits and just _Louis’ fucking laugh is going to be the death of him_. He wipes off his face with a towel hanging by the shower and then emerges from the bathroom with slightly flushed cheeks. “I think I’m ready.”

“Good to know,” Louis grins and takes his hand to drag him to the hallway without another word being spoken.

Louis never fails to entertain him – it’s almost scary how the younger man can make a certain expression and have Harry in a laughing fit. 0 to 200 in half a second, almost. It doesn’t help that Louis seems to find Harry hilarious either, except that it makes the taller male smile a little bit brighter at Louis’ reactions and replies. The sun has started dropping and they’ve chosen to walk the “mountain path”, which is through the outer part of the park and up on a hill through a gathering of sparsely growing trees. Up here it’s like they’re the only people left in the world, sunrays washing over them like thick waves, and Harry barely dares to look at the male next to him. It’s like he’s fourteen again and managed to catch a girl’s attention for the first time, the two walking along the pier hand in hand. (He later nudged her into the water by accident so it was also the last date with her that he ever had.) and while he isn’t holding Louis’ hand this is already so much better than he thought it would be – which is to say a lot as he was imagining fireworks breaking out in his heart. (It has.)

Arabella’s is full of life and people chatting idly over a beer or a gin and tonic. Louis has the fullest smile ever on his lips when he drags Harry trough the crowd and up to the actual bar where he lets go, glances around and then swings himself over the counter with an unbelievably lithe body to embrace one of the bartenders warmly. Harry tries not to be jealous because yeah, he danced with Louis in his kitchen to Train.

“Harry!” Louis shouts over the noise in the room and said male stares at Louis and his friend, who’s pressed to his side. “This is Zayn Malik and he’s the best goddamned bartender in the whole wide world.” Harry nods and clumsily makes his way forward to shake the man’s hand.

“I’m Harry,” he says dumbly and Zayn laughs.

“Hey, nice to meet you finally,” he greets while Louis jumps back to Harry’s side of the counter.

“Finally?” Harry laughs nervously and mirrors his “date’s” movements by sitting down on the round black seats. Zayn pours them a turquoise drink each and puts in a mini umbrella, scooting them over to have Louis gripping it expertly and Harry nearly spilling the thing all over his lap.

“Oh yes,” Zayn grins in the dim light and flicks on the extra lamps by the glasses hanging from the roof, “Lou has never stopped talking about you.”

“I have spoken a lot about you _yes_ , but not constantly” Louis says to Harry who’s escaped to sip on his drink while spinning on the stool and gazing out over everyone inside and the small stage where a band is preparing to play and wipes the dust off their guitars. Arabella’s is larger than he initially thought.

“Who are they?” he asks as he spins back to face the two friends who have already shifted topic.

“Oh, they’re locals,” Zayn informs with a sort of passion in his tone hinting that he’s possibly their secret manager or something, “The 1975, just released their first album, The 1975.”

“Any good?” Louis chimes in and imitates Harry by spinning a few laps before stilling and shaking his eyes back into place.

“Very,” Zayn hums and blows a bit on the glass he’s polishing. He leans over the counter to whisper to the couple. “I think they’re going on tour in, like, August or something. I swear to God had I not caught sight of them when I did they’d be off by now. But, as it turns out, they figured that it’d be nice to play in these smaller places before being shipped of to another continent or whatever. I’m one lucky bastard.”

“That you are,” Louis says, and Harry says, “so, pretty good then,” and takes another sip from the icy liquid bubbling around in his deep glass.

“I have a track list _here_ ,” Zayn huffs as he rips a paper from the wall which seems to have been held up there by nails, when it really was only some sort of adhesive, “if you would like to take a sneak peek.” Louis nods and reaches for the paper, skimming through it before moving it in between himself and Harry so that they can both read it through.

“Boys, d’you want anything else? It’s happy hour.” Harry shrugs and Louis glanced up from the list.

“I think a bowl of nuts would be nice,” he ponders, “or crisps. What do you say Haz?” Harry wants to grab him firmly and tell him that no, he doesn’t want a bowl of nuts because Louis just gave him a stupid nickname and no that does not make him want to kiss and hug him at all.

“Sounds good,” he answers and listens to Louis as he makes their desires known to Zayn who instantly wanders off to fulfil their wishes.

“So, what do you think?” Louis asks as he spins around to Harry’s side and the taller puts down his drink. He’s not sure what Louis is talking about.

“Well, Zayn seems like a nice guy, this place is suspiciously cosy and the band is going to play in a minute or so, so everything is splendid.” Louis speaks something in agreement and then downs the rest of both his and Harry’s drink before standing up with a hand reached out to grab. “C’mon, we should dance” he states. Yes please, Harry thinks, and follows him through the sea of bodies up to the front of the stage where everything seems to be ready to rock the roof off.

Soon enough the music starts blaring at an okay volume (not too loud to cause lasting ear injuries and not too low to make you sharpen your hearing) so Harry doesn’t have any time to observe Louis in all his happiness, but then again – it’s all fine when they start to dance and when others follow to push them closer together. The lyrics are showing up on screens beside the band and so they try to sing along at the top of their lungs to songs like _Heart Out, Sex, Talk!_ and _Girls_. Sure, they are both getting a bit tipsy, and they don’t nail a single note, but Harry can only think _fuck everything_ because Louis is laughing and singing in front of him and they’re dancing together and Harry has not felt this happy ever in the seven months having passed.

In the middle of _Chocolate_ – when everyone is bouncing at the most and shouting in glee and euphoria – they stumble away to the bar and slide down with giggles bubbling from their mouths and keeping a never ending eye contact with each other. Louis stills for a second with furrowed brows before standing back up and jumping onto Harry’s lap and sit himself comfortably there. Harry laughs again and can’t help himself from nosing along Louis’ neck whose legs are swinging back and forth with caged adrenaline.

“I like this band!” Louis yells over the drums and plucking guitars and Harry grins widely up at him.

“Me too!” he replies and waves over a long beautiful woman to order “another one of those blue things”. She still seems to understand as she seconds later returns from the back with two copies of the drink Zayn served them. Harry smiles sheepishly and raises his to knock against Louis’ right as he lets the content run down his throat. He’s not going to get drunk tonight, but he probably is.

“Louis, I need to wee,” he groans. Louis cackles and removes himself from the male’s lap with an amusement Harry has never seen the like of before evident in his face.

“Well, you go wee then Haz, there’s nothing stopping you.” You are, replays in his mind, but he rarely ever speaks his thoughts so he should hopefully be safe a while longer.

When the door closes to the toilets he searches each cubicle to see if there is anyone there – there isn’t – so he spins around with his hands high above his head in a dance on his own with delight radiating from his swirling body. He stops when the dizziness starts creeping up on him and walks into one of the cubicles. Just as he goes to wash his hands his phone buzzes frequently, alerting him off an incoming call. He grins tiredly, naïvely thinking that Louis is missing him already, but drops the thing in the sink when he sees the name _Liam Payne_ being put on display. For a second he loses all will to live and it’s like he’s climbed the same hill for months and months and now the big boulder above is rolling over him to take him back to the start.

He reaches down with shaky fingers and presses _answer_ , utters a hoarse “hello?” and prays to God that Louis won’t leave if he’s in here for too long.

“Harry,” comes Liam’s voice. Harry goes to sit on a closed toilet lid and locks the door as he speaks quietly.

“What are you doing? What’s going on?” he asks in fear – something that only increases when Liam sighs.

“She wants the house,” he says simply, and just like that Harry’s world crumbles.

“No. No way Liam. Tell her to fuck off and get out of my life. I’m not- I don’t want to talk to her anymore.”

“I’ve tried!” Liam butts in, “believe me Harry, I tried for the most part of our conversation but she wouldn’t listen. She’s coming back to town next week for a meeting which will involve both of you and if you don’t show up it’ll only work in her favour.”

“Liam,” Harry pleads desperately with his hand rubbing his sore eyes, “the house is all I have left. You can’t let her do this.”

“What can I say?” Liam sighs as Harry hears the door to the toilets open and close, “She’s a bitch.”

The 1975 sounds through the door and plays louder and stronger when the door opens and closes once more, leaving Harry to stop himself from crying where he sits in his cubicle.

“Why is she back?” he whispers shakily, “she has no reason whatsoever to see me again, it’s not like _I_ left _her_. Just, why?”

“I don’t know Harry, but I’m going to do anything in my power to make sure she doesn’t get another penny.”

“Yeah,” he sniffles and wipes his eyes, “yeah, okay. Liam, I’ve gotta go, I, uh, I have a date.”

“Well, good luck,” Liam says and hangs up after they’ve exchanged goodbyes.

He exits the bathroom and is met by a slower beat than the previous ones and immediately spots Louis runs his fingertips along the glass rim with a sleepy expression.

“Harry!” the man exclaims with a face-splitting grin and almost falls off his chair on his way to stand and throw an arm around Harry’s shoulder. Then he spots Harry’s simper and the joy washes off of his body like toxic being repelled by its antidote and he says “oh” and move them over to the bar where Zayn is standing and chitchatting with his co-worker with the long pink hair and the perfectly painted eyes.

“Malik,” Louis calls which effectively draws the other man’s attention who excuses himself and leans over the counter to hear his friend’s words. “We’re leaving now, you take care, alright?” and Zayn just nods three times and says “yeah, you too Louis” and then Louis is leading Harry away to the exit with quick, stumbling steps.

To say that the rain is pouring outside would be like saying the Pompeii was only covered in a fine layer of dust. A few light green and dark red streaks of sunlight are still clinging on helplessly to the darkening England with shadows pressing in on them from everywhere the streetlights don’t enlighten the way. Harry finds himself drenched in four seconds and following Louis with fast feet through the thick wall of water taking up the air. None of them bothered to bring an umbrella, but he thinks that the rain is kind of nice, now. It’s like God has taken a picture of his brain and heart and printed it out on the weather where he and Louis are struggling to make their way out of. He thinks that it has to symbolize something.

“So,” Louis has to shout for his voice to be heard over the traffic and downfall, “anything on your mind?” Harry shakes his head and hurries up to walk right beside the younger male.

“Not now,” is all he says. Louis nods to his relief and they continue forth in silence.

Everything turns strangely quiet by the time they reach his house and he forces himself to turn around and look at Louis who’s currently in the spotlight from his lamp above the front door. He looks tired and worried but also curious like a child and Harry really doesn’t know how he’ll resist kissing him any longer than this.

“Something happened in the bathroom, didn’t it,” Louis states matter-of-factly. Harry sniffles and nods a little bit.

“Are you in a hurry?” he asks.

“Not in the slightest,” is Louis’ immediate reply which puts a tiny smile to Harry’s lips.

“Fancy coming inside?”

As soon as the door closes behind them Harry is flicking on the light and kicking off his shoes to go and fetch a couple of towels. He removes his shirt on his way to the bedroom and discards it carelessly onto the collection of his wardrobe that has made its new home right there on the floor. When he slips into one of his old hoodies he sees that Louis is basically doing the same thing as he did seconds prior – removing his wet shirt, that is. Harry wants to scream.

“I have clothes you could borrow?” Harry suggests and Louis smiles warmly at him. He throws another hoodie to the man (and does his best to not drink his appearance in too much as the garment is even larger on Louis’ body than it is on Harry’s) and together they sit down by the kitchen table. The light in the room is a soft grey and the lamps from the living room sneaks into their presence with orange shades which puts Harry at ease. It always has.

“You didn’t pee yourself, did you?” Louis asks after minutes in the silence as he gets up to fix them a cup of coffee each. Harry laughs miserably.

“Afraid I did not,” he grins and accepts the drink from Louis; sipping it a couple of times he puts it down and coughs. “I got an unexpected call, I guess you can say.”

“I suspect you’re going to tell me why?” Louis asks over the cup and his eyes glister in the light.

“It was from my divorce attorney.” Louis stiffens.

“You’re married?”

“ _Was_ married, yes,” Harry sighs and hides his face in his hands. Louis snorts.

“Shit went wrong?”

“Something like that.” Louis is watching him carefully and picks at the hem of his green hoodie. “The thing is that she took pretty much everything in exchange for the house and now she wants to take that too.”

“She’s a bitch then,” Louis states and Harry winces. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Harry assures him and peeks up to see him gaze with eyes showing no regret at all. “I, well, I guess she’s a bitch.” He laughs – a sharp, short sound. “She wasn’t like this when I met her.”

“Obviously,” Louis huffs and Harry should be at least annoyed with him but he only smiles sadly. “Well, how do you feel about her now; after all this?” Harry licks his lips.

“I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t seen or spoken to her in seven months so I can’t really tell.”

“Are you moving on?” Louis phrases it instead.

“When you say it like that… I think I am. I’ll always care for her – that’s not something that just blows over, y’know? But I don’t- I don’t think I love her anymore?” He hasn’t spoken about this in so long and it feels freeing to have someone taking interest in his fucked up love life. “I do have the poorest luck,” he admits. It’s probably the alcohol.

“Why?” Louis cocks his head curiously.

“Let’s see. My first girlfriend cheated on me with my teacher when I was fifteen.” He smiles distantly. “Then there was the time I accidentally kissed one of my mother’s friends, who was a mother of three and also married.” Louis laughs. “You then?”

“I haven’t done any of that, unfortunately,” Louis hums in amusement, “although, I suppose the closest thing would be when Mary tried to pick me up from school one day.”

“Do I dare to ask?”

Louis shakes his head and says, “oh, just the local prostitute,” and they both laugh.

“No other problems in your life?” Harry wonders.

“Oh, and here I thought we were talking about love,” Louis chuckles, “but of course I’ve had problems in life.”

“Care to tell me?” Harry rests his chin in his palm and gazes at him as he lifts the cup to finish up the last of the coffee in there.

“No, no,” he deadpans like Harry is stupid, “that is for another evening.”

“I think it’s like two am.”

“Another night in that case.” He takes both of their cups and adds them to the Alps in Harry’s sink before strolling out of the kitchen.

“You’re leaving?” Harry questions and hopes that Louis doesn’t notice his tone.

“It is, as you said, two am.”

“Actually,” Harry glances at the clock, “it’s half past one.”

“It’s equally bad,” Louis says, then changes direction to lie down in the sofa and turn on the TV.

“Louis, are you leaving or are you staying?”

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks and no, he really doesn’t.

“I don’t,” he answers. Louis waves him over with a grin. When he’s close enough he grabs Harry by the hoodie and pulls him down for a kiss on the cheek.

“Well, good, because there is no way in hell I’m walking home in this rain.” Harry doesn’t mind it at all. He tells Louis to scoot – which he does – and then makes room for himself behind Louis’ back so that they’re pressed up together; chest to back. This time Harry instinctively combs through Louis’ hair with his fingers and prays that the other male is distracted enough by the talk show playing to notice his motions.

The kitchen lights are annoying him from where they shine out the corner of his eye, but there is no way he’d be able to get up from his position with Louis even if he wanted to. It doesn’t help that Louis continues to scoot further into Harry either, or the fact that he soon enough shifts to lay on his back and staring up at Harry with heavy eyelids and a dopey smile.

“Your love life does kind of suck,” he says. Harry looks down at him with a fond expression and runs his thumb over the man’s cheekbone and down to his chin and the start of stubble there.

“It does,” Harry hums and tries to pay attention to the screen in front of them.

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis whines, “I’m tired.”

“Then sleep.”

“I will,” Louis yawns and turns around once more so that he’s cuddled into Harry’s chest, “goodnight Haz.”

“Goodnight Louis.”

 

From there on it all goes to hell rather quickly. It’s most likely because Harry hasn’t spoken to Louis in three days other than the occasional _hey_ and _goodnight_ , which leaves the older man in an utterly frustrated condition. And, of course, the meeting with Marina is nearing. Niall senses the change in his mood the very second he enters the observatory and Harry responds to Niall’s question with _I don’t give a blistering fuck about how green Mars is_ and sulks in his chair.

“You fucked and he didn’t call?” Niall asks sympathetically. Harry throws the files on his desk at him. “Hey, hey, what crawled up your ass and died? I mean, it obviously wasn’t Louis-”

“She’s going to take the house,” Harry spits and his head slams into the tabletop, throwing loose papers all over the floor.

“Is he okay?” One of the other astronomers, Celine, asks carefully where she starts to make her way over and Niall shakes his head subtly while petting his friend’s back.

“Are- are you crying?” Niall wonders when he feels the rapid rising and falling of Harry’s shoulders. Harry doesn’t answer. Niall turns to Celine who’s keeping her safe distance but then waves her over with his head turned away from the incoming disaster around him.

“Harry?” Celine says softly and takes over Niall’s place as the male jumps to sit on the desk.

“I don’t want to,” Harry groans and hiccups. She looks over angrily at Niall like it’s his entire fault, and all he can do is to mouth _Marina_ and her facial expression shifts to a bitter one.

“Harry, love, talk to me,” she mumbles as she strokes his back soothingly. Harry gurgles and Niall facepalms – earning another glare from the woman.

“She, ugh.” He wipes his eyes and spins around on the chair to reveal his red stained face to her. She uses her thumb to gather up the newest tear and shake it off while fixing his hair with her other free hand.

“Easy,” she speaks cautiously and shoots Niall a final look that tells him to fuck off or she’ll send Tony on him.

“Liam called. Five days ago,” Harry begins with a wobbly voice.

“As in Payne?” He nods in confirmation.

“She’s, uh, coming back tomorrow – wants a meeting with me or something – and, I haven’t seen her in _seven months_ and now she’s coming back and she’s going to take my fucking house and everything is shit.”

“Okay, okay breathe Harry. Deep, slow breaths.” He does so and watches her leave the room quickly to return with a pack of napkins. “I’m going to ask a few questions and I’d like you to try and answer them, alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you dreading tomorrow?”

He snorts. “I could kill myself over tomorrow Celine.”

“Christ, um, what did Liam tell you more exactly?”

“He,” _sniffle_ , “he said something about how he’d do his best to help me and that she wouldn’t get another penny, but-“

“No, quiet,” Celine orders and he shuts his mouth. “Listen, you have all our support, and if she has some fake-ass argument as to why you owe her your home then I’ll personally hunt her down and stab her. Sounds good?” Harry chuckles wetly.

“I suppose,” he admits, “just don’t, like, kill her? I don’t think that’d look too good.”

“Of course not,” she smiles and kisses his forehead, “so you’ll be fine?”

“No,” he admits, “but I’ll be better.” Celine gives the “okay” to Niall who replaces her by Harry’s side and once again pats his back.

“You will be fine, you know,” he mutters. Harry gazes up at him and shrugs weakly. “And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what N-man?” Harry asks. Niall facepalms again.

“Okay, I see what you mean about the nickname. I promise I’ll stop.”

“It’s goddamn awful,” Harry chuckles and Niall nods in agreement as he spreads his palm over a photo of the outer atmosphere on the table.

“Not a shit has happened since we got back, has it?” he sighs.

“I think something has happened,” Harry muses and stands up to study the pictures in the different files, “we just haven’t found it.”

“Sure,” Niall says and jumps off the desk to return to his own work, but stops half way and turns to Harry, “and Mars isn’t green, for your information.”

 

As soon as he quits work he texts Louis something other than _how are you?_ and slides out of the observatory. (But not without almost knocking over the fake plant inside.) He walks into about five people on his way through the crowd because he’s burning holes in the screen of his phone in wait for Louis’ reply to his _can I come over? x_. It’s Thursday, so Louis may or not still be working, but that thought slips by Harry easily because of everything else going on in his brain.

When he for the sixteenth time bumps into a lamppost he gets Louis’ reply _yea sure xx_ and starts to jog down the pavement. He has never been at Louis’ before, but he has the address written down on a memo in his phone so it’s with the help from his GPS that he navigates through Manchester with rushed steps. Louis _should_ be working, now that he thinks about it. Yes, he has memorized his working hours. No, he’s not a creep out to feed of Louis’ blood.

The place is mashed together between tall intimidating buildings and towers over the smaller streets in town like assassins waiting for their pray, casting long fearful shadows over Harry where he stops to observe the house in which Louis is in. He had expected Louis to live in the sunlight where he could wake up and open the window to hear a well-rested choir consisting of birds and the pretty girl next door sing for him and feed him with happiness and prepare him for the day. This place is, as you’d say, a dump. A few of the window frames on the other buildings are completely empty or has shards of glass sticking out like death-traps to the residents and those who actually have glass in them are so dusty that you can’t peek inside even if you stood three feet from the thing. It’s like everything dark hiding in Manchester is being drawn to this place like it’s a giant magnet and Harry wonders how in the hell someone as lovable and generous as Louis can even last a night here.

In his memo it says _2B_ as the location he’s headed to, and as soon as he’s climbed the lanky stairs he rings the doorbell to a house that seems somewhat cleaner than the other ones. Louis shows up in the doorway with black circles around his eyes and a dress-like tee hanging from his skinny shoulders and down to bare mid-thigh; his crystal eyes lighting up remarkably at the sight of a tired Harry. He stumbles forth a bit to wrap his arms around the taller male and nuzzles his nose into the fabric of Harry’s sweater.

“Hi Haz,” he croaks as Harry smoothes a palm over his back.

“Are you sick?” Louis pulls away with a sniffle and crosses his arms over his chest.

“A bit,” he admits, and now Harry sees how dark the skin around his eyes really is, how red his nose seems and how pale his lips have become.

“You look like you’re dying,” Harry points out when he’s let into the flat, which, by the way, looks like a warzone with the living room as base.

“I think I am,” Louis laughs and scratches the back of his head. His tee could very well resemble a hospital gown – it all fits in with the state of the house. When Harry stares further inside after getting rid of his shoes by the door he can see a frozen TV screen and a large bowl of sweets (mostly fudge though) standing on the table among a tonne of discarded napkins and blankets.

Louis trails off into the kitchen and Harry follows when he hears water running.

“D’you want anything?” Louis asks with a cough. Harry gently pushes him away from the sink and leads him over to a chair.

“You sit down,” he says firmly, “and I’ll fix anything you want to. Now, where do you keep things in here?” He has begun searching the cabinets, hunting for a cup to pour coffee in.

“I don’t need anything,” Louis says and links their fingers together with a shy smile that sends Harry’s thoughts flying under a buss tenfold. They sink down in the sofa as Harry nervously wraps his arms around Louis’ middle where the man sits in his lap and drapes five layers of blankets over them and collects the bowl of sweets from the table.

“What are we watching?” he asks when Louis hits play again only for Louis to splutter and turn around to face him.

“Are you serious?”

“Do I look serious?” he questions slowly. Louis shoves about five Collector’s Edition’s in his face which includes shows such as How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, 2 ½ Men and Simpsons. “Tell me you’ve seen at least one of them,” Louis pleads.

“I can’t say I have,” Harry apologizes.

“What the hell do you do in your free time?” Louis chuckles in disbelief but interrupts Harry before he can speak, with a “I really don’t want to know”, and then proceeds to pause the TV and lean back to start telling the plot of the show currently showing – which Harry suspects is How I Met Your Mother.

Louis doesn’t seem to mind sitting in Harry’s lap, sideways with his back being held up by said male’s arms and his legs hanging over the edge of the sofa. He makes small gestures as he speaks and cuddles into Harry’s chest with his head under the older man’s chin when they start to watch the final episode of season two again. Louis falls asleep in his arms after a while, so Harry gently lifts him up and into his bedroom where he tucks him in and tries to not to stare at his bare tanned thighs. He sits beside him in silence for a while, until the sun starts to sink and the room turns grey and cold with the loss of light.

One thing he’s learnt from reading and living in the fictional world is that often when people are asleep and you spill every deep secret you’ve kept hidden inside of you for years, they aren’t really asleep. So Harry settles with thinking really hard and hoping that Louis can’t hear his thoughts where he lies in slumber, his hand fisting the fabric of Harry’s sweater. It’s quite insane how he can hold himself together just enough to not dart forward and curls around Louis like a shield and protect him from everything nearby and far away. He wonders how Louis sees himself; if he looks at himself in the mirror and is proud of who he is and what he’s accomplished in his life – because he really should. He should stand and scream it from the rooftops for all he’s worth and just suck up every bit of happiness he can find.

Louis stirs when the room is in complete darkness except for the lamp perched on the nightstand which shines into his eyes. He flips himself around to avoid the light and is met by Harry observing him with soft eyes.

“Morning,” he says and brushes away Harry’s curls from his face.

“Evening,” comes the reply with a thick voice indicating that Harry also fell asleep for a little while. Louis’ gaze wanders down his body and stops below his throat.

“The dark side of the _moon_?” he smiles lazily, “really Hazza?”

“Hey, that has nothing to do with my hobby,” the older male defends, “it’s just about music.”

“It isn’t a hobby – it’s your life,” Louis laughs and rolls over on his back again.

“Sadly,” Harry huffs and snakes his arms around Louis’ waist, slowly pulling him in.

“Aren’t you afraid? That it’s going to swallow you up some day?” Harry blinks and breathes him in for a moment.

“I am,” he confirms quietly, “I mean it’s like that with all things, isn’t it? There’s always the good side and the bad side and sometimes you just lean too much on one of them.”

It isn’t the ideal moment to kiss, but Harry is so done resisting when Louis turns around again and, secure in Harry’s arms, presses a light kiss to his mouth that seem to linger for ages even after he’s pulled away.

“You’re silly,” Louis mumbles in the dark and tangles their legs together. Harry can barely breathe. Louis is so close to him – now physically – and his hand is in the younger’s hair and ruffling around leisurely and this isn’t good for him when he’s going to meet his ex-wife in the morning.

“You know,” Louis speaks when Harry doesn’t reply, “that thing we were going to talk about last week. About my life?” Harry nods and lets out half a breath. “How about I tell you after your meeting tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Harry exhales deeply. Louis’s fingers dance over his arm with feather light touches and leans forward to kiss him once again while holding himself up the elbows.

“You aren’t drunk, are you?” Harry has to ask and Louis stops where he’s leaning over the male with a grin and their bodies flush together.

“Not in the slightest.”


	3. Chapter 3

This, right here, is when Harry thinks he’s going to die for real.

He has woken late with about half an hour until he’s meeting with Marina and in a home that isn’t his. Louis is curled around his body like bits of rope strangling him and he can feel small peaceful breaths hit his bare skin while feeling the panic rise like boiling water that will soon make him explode. In every place where invisible tentacles seem to squeeze and tear him apart he feels Louis’ skin on his, and that is what freaks him out. Louis in general.

He stares at the man for a moment while debating whether to scream internally over how perfect he looks in the dim morning light seeping in from the sickness of the living room curtains or if he should turn around and run as far as he can before he falls in too deep; if he hasn’t already. His decision is made brutally when he notices what time it is and remembers where he’s supposed to be.

He somehow manages to slink his way out of the male’s grasp and is left to stand and stare at him, move up the duvet enough to cover half of his chest. He holds his breath and freezes as Louis whimpers in his sleep and hugs the emptiness where Harry’s body previously was. He should wake Louis and fix everything as soon as he can; or he can leave a note and actually make it to his meeting in time and hopefully keep his house and deal with all of this shit later.

Louis begins to stir when Harry stumbles out in the hallway and yanks his jeans up at the same time, tripping over his feet and the fabric frequently and gripping the hangers to hold his weight up. So, like any twenty-three year old man meeting up with his wife after a night away, he runs. He dresses at the speed of light and escapes Louis’ flat with flying steps and his breath lost somewhere behind him together with his moral.

The street is dull and it seems that everyone outside today is heading to the same gloomy funeral in their thick coats of darkness while Harry is running for his life through the toxic mist of summer sadness. He’s running as if the devil is nibbling on his heels, which he probably is considering how fucked his life has become in these past weeks since he first left his house in months and met Louis at the zoo and _Louis_. Harry doesn’t want to think about that. Everything else is hinting at a beautiful day with clear weather and an inevitable clash with Marina that’ll cause thunder to break out and rain to shoot down on him. This should be fine.

It’s not, though, because she’s waiting for him outside of the building; shoulder long golden locks dancing down her spine, eyes cold and hard and a brown purse hanging in front of her bare pale legs. She’s got shades pushed up over her fringe and eyebrows that rise at a minimum as Harry approaches with heavy steps and his breath long gone with one hell of a glimpse in his eyes that is sure to make her cower away. Then again, nothing does work on her anymore, and Harry realizes this as he stops in front of her, lightly panting and most definitely sweating from sprinting from Louis’ flat under the judging sun.

“Hey,” he breathes – doesn’t even know what he’s doing here anymore and sees no reason to be rude. She only looks over her shoulder as if to avoid his breath and then glances back with a smile that’d make any flower wither and die in five seconds.

“Got Payne with you?” she asks and Harry nearly passes out; only partly from exhaustion. Her voice is still so light and full of wonder like it was this winter when they were almost snowed in with ice crystals piercing the clear night air and five hundred candles in the kitchen and living room and other places he tries to forget. Now he just wants to jump in the ocean and sink to rest at the bottom forever.

“I do,” he says as he straightens his back and gets some satisfaction out of seeing her head an inch or two below his. Liam hasn’t spoken to him since mid-week when Harry received an e-mail with the time and location, so he can only hope that the man is here because otherwise he’s sleeping on the street tonight and this is not something that he prefers over an actual bed and duvet.

“Well,” she says and spins on her heels to move through the glass doors, “you’re going to need him.”

“Who’s yours then?” he asks, trying to keep up with her quick clicking pace when they make it through the lobby and into the lift. All he can think about is how this should be way more awkward and uncomfortable than it really is and how utterly hopeless he felt last night when Louis gazed up at him through tired eyes and eventually fell asleep in his arms.

“Higgins,” she answers with a smack of her tongue. The doors close and Harry is starting to feel the dizziness creeping up on him from nowhere when they zoom up through the tall house and head straight to the meeting. Lifts should be wider than they are – especially in these kind of situations when he keeps brushing his hands together with Marina’s and they send nothing but evil shivers up and down his spine – but they aren’t, so he bites his lip and does his best not to break her heels when the doors slide open. An older man walks in and makes himself known with a quiet “hello”, then turns his back to them after Marina has acknowledged him with a “Paul”. Harry can only guess – and fear – that this is divorce attorney Higgins, and he knows that he will jump out of the window if he doesn’t see Liam’s face around the table with an empty seat screaming _Harry_ next to him.

Liam is there when the three of them enter and Harry manages to spot the bouncing legs before he’s embraced by the male who’s grown to be a friend during these times. The others are watching them sceptically and with lifeless eyes, so Harry squeezes him tightly before puffing out a breath and sliding deep down in his chair, ignoring everything that has happened outside of the room as he tries to focus on the current situation.

“You might want to skim through these,” Liam whispers in concern when he picks up a file entitled something about Styles and scoots it over to Harry.

“What is it?” the man asks while flipping through the papers inside and gazing over at Marina and Paul who are discussing something with low voices and meeting his eyes now and then. The bottom of the ocean seems to close now and the back of the sun much more appealing. Either way he’s stuck in here where there is too much air and people and too little safety and his thoughts are frequently drawn to the man with eyes as blue as Neptune who’s going to wake up alone-

“Liam,” he says loud enough for the room to fall quiet. He stares at the sentences but can’t seem to get them into his skull. _Owner._

“Yes Harry?”

“This is the wrong name,” he points out and shows with his thumb where it says _Marina Young_ instead of _Harry Styles_.

“Harry-“

“Please tell me that this is misprinted.”

“It’s not. I’m so sorry Harry, I tried to call you but your phone was off and you didn’t reply to your texts or e-mails and I even went to your house but you weren’t home and-“

Harry has stopped listening and somehow moves his eyes away from the paper to glare at his ex who has a small smug smile on her pink lips and eyes that burn with that sort of revenge glow, which is a funny thing because last time he checked she was the one to leave him and not the other way around.

“You had this all figured out from the beginning, didn’t you?” he asks, voice ringing out through the office and making everyone swallow and crawl back into their seats slowly while Marina stands to lean over the table and study his movements.

“Since a while back, yes,” she agrees. Harry hides his face in his hands.

“But you still waited seven months.”

“I did.”

Liam gulps and makes eye contact with Paul and the two slowly start to ease themselves out of the situation by sneaking off to the door with long silent steps.

“Don’t,” Marina snarls which effectively makes them freeze in their spots with sweat beginning to show on their foreheads. Liam hopes that Harry isn’t going to snap or break down like he did the last time they were all gathered like this.

“Why couldn’t you just have told me before?” he sighs and stands up as well to gain some kind of height over her. “This meeting is completely unnecessary,” he gestures around the room and blinks away the tears, “just take your fucking house, I don’t even care anymore.” She stares at him blankly, and for the first time Harry sees her as she really is. He’s very displeased.

“You’re not even going to put up a fight?” she asks with a voice reeking of disappointment and superiority. He glances at Liam who just looks at him sadly, then walks over to her side of the table. She moves away as if expecting a punch to her modelled nose.

“I’m not,” he confesses and can practically hear the tension lighten in the room, “if it- I, you know, I just wish you could have told me. I would have let you go.”

“Right,” she chuckles icily, “you wouldn’t have had a choice. You fought before, remember?”

“Yeah, because I was in love with you and the thought of moving to a new place physically hurt,” he spits, “just take your house and leave me alone.” She smacks her tongue again and taps her silver nails against the table.

“Fine,” she says. He gives a tiny nod and turns to give Liam a look – almost like a small salute with his eyes – before he’s exiting the room with a veil of despair over him as he takes the lift down and walks down the pavement to throw himself in the grass at the park.

The heat outside has gone down remarkably now and it’s relaxing and soothing for his nerves and cooling for his mind to lie in the softness of the grass and in the shadow of a nearby tree with different melodies playing on loops in his head – all to make him calm the fuck down and sort his life out.

The sun sails quickly over the blue above that is caging him in and he blinks tiredly up with a heavy heart resting within his chest that seems to slow with every beat he feels that keeps him alive and up and going. The clouds are like supporting characters to the sun and the moon, he thinks; they’re just barely there with their white and grey fluff scattered around, but everyone would get tired of the sky if it was constantly cerulean and navy and cyan, so while the sun and moon circles each other and passes to never meet the clouds are keeping the sky’s reputation at a high and assuring everyone of how good a clear sky with sunshine really is when they bring forth storms of thunder and lightning. Normally it would be too early for him to think these kinds of thoughts and imagine these kinds of things, but he doesn’t feel like there’s a problem with what he does now seeing as his life just packed its suitcases and flew out the window with all his cash.

First things first.

The mental picture of the ownership of the house is flashing up on the sky and that’s when he fully realizes that he’s homeless. He needs to pack his stuff; head over to Niall’s or back home to his mother and father where he can sleep and eat long enough for him to find his own place. He may have to move away from Manchester if there aren’t any flats and perhaps start to work during weekends as well if he wants to be able to afford even the smallest place in town. All of his money went down the drain the second he first met Marina and it stings because he didn’t see it back then. It hurts because now it’s almost too obvious and if he compares that to how naïve the seventeen year old version of himself was then he isn’t going to have enough peace to sleep at night.

He needs to go home soon as possible and pack his stuff for when he’s being kicked out and find some place where he can store them until he finds a place of his own. Again, this could either be with his parents or Niall, but he doesn’t want to bring it upon either of them to take care of him when he could do just brilliantly on his own. And speaking of the devil.

“Harry?” comes a familiar voice. He sits up at the name and turns his head to see Niall sink to sit crisscross on the ground beside him and cut grass with his dirty fingertips.

“Hello N-man,” he smiles faintly. For once Niall’s own smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and it doesn’t really matter.

“I thought we’d agreed to throw away that name and burn it?” Niall asks softly. This is when Harry breaks down.

He leans into Niall’s chest with tears quickly overflowing his eyes and running forcefully down his cheeks while his body shakes in his friend’s grasp. Niall hushes him and strokes his back in time with the male’s sobs, nuzzles his nose into the curly hair and comforts him to the best of his ability. Small touches is the thing, he supposes as he seemingly hugs the life out of Harry who is gasping for breath but hiding his mouth and nose away at the same time to choke himself; small touches and firm but gentle words. But Niall is extremely uncomfortable with these kinds of situations, so all he can do is to hold and be there in a stillness filled with nothing but tears and sobs.

“I’m so fucked,” Harry laughs and clings onto Niall for all he’s worth.

“Do you want to talk?” he asks carefully. Harry pulls away with a few quick headshakes and wipes at his eyes irately. Niall glares at anyone passing by who gives them a funny look or two; slings an arm around Harry’s shoulder and pecks his forehead and massages his scalp with caring motions that he hopes will relieve some of the stress and pain the astronomer is carrying on.

“Turns out it never was my house,” he croaks and harshly blinks away the remaining tears in desire for a normal looking face but his efforts are fruitless when all that comes are more of them. “There was a contract and everything where it should have been my name but-“ He shakes.

“Harry, it’s-“

“I’ve lived in her house all the time; do you understand how much that hurts to know? Oh, and she has apparently known this ever since before we divorced; just waited for the opportunity to arise and burn the ground beneath my feet,” Harry cuts him off and gazes at Niall with wild eyes. The blonde studies him for a second, takes in the way his expression speaks for itself and the hot breath seeping out from between his red flaming lips.

“There’s something more, right?” he states as if he’s a psychic. Harry nods dejectedly and lets his palms suck up the new round of tears once more.

“I slept with Louis last night,” he forces out like he confesses a sin to God in all secrecy. Niall’s eyes widen and he almost falls backwards into the pile of dog shit behind him.

“I, uh, what did he say?”

“Niall. What…?”

“Well how am I supposed to react then?!” Niall exclaims with hands flying up in the air. “What happened?”

“We had sex,” Harry deadpans and Niall slaps his shoulder.

“I’m not five,” Niall snorts, and “I mean I know that you fancy each other-“ He holds up his hand to silence Harry’s incoming protest, “-but do you really think that this was the best time to do _that_?” Harry nibbles on his bottom lip and can’t help but grin. Despite how everything has gone to hell the whole is kind of funny if he thinks about it.

“I do not,” he defends.

“So? Anything in particular leading up to it – don’t tell me anything else, please – that I should be aware of?”

Harry shrugs. “Not before, but, I, like, sort of left before he woke up this morning?” Niall pushes him down on the ground and slaps him across the face.

“ _You stupid cunt, insensible fucking twat I’m going to snap you in two_ -“

Harry rolls away from him in the grass and dodges Niall’s fists like he was born to do it, scared and teary eyes watching as his friend tries to knock some sense into him.

“Niall!” he shrieks. Most people in the park are now observing them intently and leading away their children from the two freaks wrestling on the ground while shaking their heads in disgust and horror. Harry holds his arms up like a fragile shield while squeezing his eyes shut to block out Niall completely, something that doesn’t work because he can still hear the curses and insults to Jesus tumbling from Niall’s mouth like a constant stream from a waterfall.

When Niall eventually stops Harry won’t recognize himself in the mirror, if he had one, and so they lie there in the grass straddling each other and sending glares and unanswered questions wordlessly between them like they have a bubble hiding them from the world around.

“You,” Niall breathes heavily. Harry wipes some spit from his eyebrow and blinks.

“Yeah?” he replies quietly.

“ _You_ ,” Niall repeats, now with a little more heat in his tone.

“I panicked!” Harry then defends while pushing the blonde off of him and flat onto the ground beside him.

“Have you at least texted him or something since? Did you even leave a _fucking note_?”

“Niall, no, I just, I-“

“You better fucking call him right now.” Niall is growing agitated; Harry notices on the way his accent thickens and the words start to float together into a big incomprehensible mess.

“Niall-“

“ _Call. Him._ ”

So Harry does. He fishes out the phone from his pockets with sweaty palms and his friend’s blazing gaze on the back of his head, scorching a part of his curls in its journey towards Harry’s brain. He’s only a little bit worried.

The signals go forth for ages and Niall sighs irritably a dozen times during that, cutting off grass with not-so-well concealed aggravation and anger at Harry. No one answers on the other line – it doesn’t even go to voicemail – and Harry gulps thickly as he clicks off the device and turns to Niall in anticipating horror.

“I, uh, there’s no, he’s not there.”

“You fucking asshole,” Niall mumbles under his breath and plants a too firm iron hand on Harry’s shoulder, stares into his eyes steadily, “okay. I’m really fucking sorry about your house and your life mate, but that is a topic for another time so don’t even bother. You run back to Louis’ and apologize for being an idiot and you snog and make up and _then_ we’ll discuss what the fuck we’re going to do with you because I sure as hell ain’t gonna accept Harry Styles as a hobo. So, go fix things.”

Harry looks blankly at him until the male slaps him across the cheek forcefully and kicks him up to stand on wobbly legs, setting him of to Louis’ flat with a _don’t make me drag you there myself_ and then Harry is running. He ducks under construction workers with their arms packed up for meters with planks and engines and linoleum, dances around florists putting out fresh flowers to feed in this incredible summer heat who are all watching his back disappear through the crowd in curiosity. The only real obstacle he faces is when he reaches a crossing where cars are passing in 300 and he has to spring along the pavement until there’s a gap; a whole choir of car whistles whining when he zooms in between the vehicles with his breath gathering in the depths of his lungs. Louis’ place is barely eight minutes from the park in which Niall assaulted him. He’s closing the distance rapidly, finally finding something to put his long legs to use for.

The complex still taunts him as he enters through the front door, peeking down with its fangs out just waiting for someone defenceless soul to pass and then go straight for the kill. He tries not to be defenceless. Especially not as he swallows when he’s reached 2B and still hasn’t regained his full breath so his lungs still seem to bail on him; shrinking into nothing but a hollow in his tummy. He knocks, rings the doorbell, tears his lip open and repeats. There is not a single sound beyond the door however, so he knocks a little more insistently and puts his ear flat against the wood.

“Louis?” he calls softly, although with the slightest bit of anxiety in his veins. “Louis, can you open up?” He knocks until his knuckles are beet red – almost to the point where he’s bleeding – all while calling out for the man inside. As the dark drapes around him and the empty echoing hallway in which he stands he starts to think that Louis simply isn’t at home. He listens and listens for some kind of sign or noise indicating that the man is in fact inside but ends up blank.

Outside is growing colder and more gruesome as the sun escapes to warm another part of the Earth and Harry paces back and forth in the narrow winding staircase. He alters between standing, sitting and pacing. Sometimes biting his nails down to the bone in between those. His stomach kindly reminds him that he hasn’t eaten a petty thing today by screaming out and throwing the sound around in his head to finally fly out the window and dump down on the street with all the racing cars that are rushing home from work.

He ends up leaving Louis’ flat empty handed and with a heavy heart, once again jogging along the pavement to where there exists a large rectangular sign with the ghostly white name **ARABELLA’S**. The door is almost too heavy for him to move even an inch and he supposes that this is his body taking its revenge on him for not eating, which he guesses that he deserves.

Zayn Malik stands behind the bar, bent over backwards in a bridge-like position and staring at something large and black moving in the ceiling with long-lasting steps that drag across the wood. Another man stands next to him, a half polished glass in hand that makes the light bounce everywhere, also he staring fixatedly up at the dark ball of fluff.

“Uh,” Harry says. The other male watches him curiously while Zayn plainly ignores him.

“Hi,” the man says and swings over the counter smoothly, setting the glass down on the counter together with the motion that brings his long thin legs over to where Harry stands in two gracious steps. “You know Zayn? Otherwise I’m afraid that we’re closed for now-“

“Oh, yeah, I sort of know him,” Harry cuts off. He reaches his hand out for added politeness and to his relief it’s answered. “’m Harry.”

“Rick.” The man guides him over to where Zayn is still glowering upwards and hops over to his co-workers side, petting his shoulder with care. Zayn mumbles out something inaudible without moving. Harry decides to take a peek at what exactly it is that he’s staring at but changes his mind as he sees the most gigantic spider that has probably ever existed.

“Uh.”

Now is the time Zayn chooses to acknowledge Harry’s existence and flips around to grin warily at him. “Hellu,” he speaks and nods swiftly, only glancing up to the spider once, “you do know that we’re closed, don’t ya?”

“Yeah, I do,” Harry confirms, “I was just dropping by to, uh-“ It’s hard to think when there’s an eight legged horror of a creature hanging from above, swinging back and forth with a thread spinning out from it’s arse. “Do you have some spider problems?”

“A little bit yeah,” Rick says before Zayn can defend his pride, “you see Malik here is afraid of those shits and refuses to remove it, but apparently standing here like a statue and glaring at it will make it go away so you’ll have to ask him.”

“ _It has like sixty eyes_ ,” Zayn butts in, “and you’re also afraid of them which is exactly why we have this problem. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

“You’re the problem.”

“Am not, we share the problem 70/70.”

“Um,” Harry says, looking between the obvious friends’ quarrel.

“At least I have the balls to admit that I’m scared out of my skin-“

“This doesn’t _help_!” Zayn exclaims and nearly yanks his dark hair from his skull.

“D’you have any paper or- actually I guess a glass would work just fine,” Harry interrupts them and climbs with enormous difficulty over the counter to their side and brushes off his palms.

“Does this help in the task of getting rid of the monster?” Zayn asks doubtfully. Harry nods. “OKAY,” the man says and bounces off to gather a plastic mug which he hands to Harry happily and with the biggest smile on his face to ever be observed by man. “Alright, get on with it then.”

Being the tallest of them, Harry figured that it shouldn’t be too complex to capture the animal and let it out safely on the street, but he realizes now that he keeps running around below where the spider crawls that this is harder than he thought by far. Like, trying-to-catch-fire-with-your-middle-toe hard. He runs around behind the counter with flailing arms and wide eyes and Zayn and Rick flee the area with quick movements and hide behind the barstools and watch in fear as he chases the thing back and forth.

It falls down after ten minutes, Harry speeding away to capture it inside the cup and slamming it onto a tiny plate triumphantly.

“Woah,” Zayn breathes in astonishment.

“Awesome,” Rick chimes in.

Harry feels too proud for the deed he’s done.

“Well, you should probably take care of that,” he points out and the two men slide up by his side to observe the cup sceptically.

“I’m not touching that-“

“Don’t even-“

“You pussy-“

“You get rid of-“

“Men,” Harry says, because they aren’t really boys, so that’s out of the question. They look at him expectantly. “You two got to get a girl to take care of these kinds of things.”

“We have Perrie-“

“No we don’t, shut up Dick.”

“It’s Rick.”

“It _rhymes_.”

Harry doesn’t need to excuse himself from the room as he travels away with the spider and cup and plate in hand, spinning out through the backdoor and releasing it out into the wild city where it can seek peace. When he returns to the males inside they’re still arguing and Harry doubts that they’ve noticed his absence.

“Zayn,” he pipes up, apparently too quietly as they still continue to speak heatedly. “Um, guys, can you, like-“ They fall silent and glare at one another, both cocking their heads and slowly turning to face Harry. “Uh, hi, hello, do any of you know where Louis is?”

“You _don’t_ know?” Zayn flatly speaks.

“… Should I?”

Zayn stares. “Well, you’re like, boyfriends, I figured you’d know.”

“No, no we’re not, we just-“

“He’s in the woods,” Zayn smacks his tongue and drags a finger across the dusty counter to which he wrinkles his nose.

“The woods? Why?”

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” Zayn starts blabbering, “like, I went to visit him yesterday morning because he said that he was feeling like shit and he looked just like my grandmother – which is just not a positive thing – and next thing I know he’s heading out to the cabin like he’s on warpath- uh, yeah. He’s- I can drive you there if you’d like to see him?” _Warpath. His goddamned sickness sure as hell didn’t stop them yesterday._

Harry chokes out something that sounds terribly familiar to “fjdskh” and fumbles desperately after one of the barstools as his brain thickens and slows down like an accident further up on a highway.

“Harry?” Rick asks worriedly.

“ _Hush_ ,” Zayn hisses and crouches next to the curly haired male and slides a palm up to cup his knee, “you okay mate? You went to see him too, didn’t ya? What did you say? What happened? Is he _dead_?”

“Zayn-“

“No, I just need to talk to him,” Harry coughs and cuts Rick off who huffs and goes back to polish glasses to shining perfection.

“ _Ah_ ,” Zayn nods in mock understanding and Harry wonders how this man is so different from the one he met the first time when he and Louis strutted in here.

“So you’ll take me to the woods or the, well, wherever Lou is?”

“We’re now down to nicknames,” Zayn comments happily and then bounces up on his toes, “yeah, of course, Rick will keep the scores here and when the sun dies out we’ll be back, won’t we?”

“I- I suppose?”

“Hell yeah we are,” Zayn laughs cordially and hits his back in an attempt at softness. “ _Rickkk_.”

“Yes my little pumpkin?”

“I’m taking Harry here out to see his lover in the woods and then I’m going to shoot them both, expect me back before eight.”

“Sure.”

“Haha, alright bye cutie-boo-boo.” Harry isn’t even confused anymore as Zayn pushes him out of the bar and into an awaiting car in the back where he slams the door and Harry thinks that he may very well die tonight for more reasons than one.

The ride through Manchester and in between the trees crowding outside in the wild is filled and occupied with words from Zayn and shaky replies from Harry, some bad pop music blaring into the latter’s ears with Zayn bopping his head in rhythm and urging Harry do to the same. The road is extremely bumpy and covered in insignificant but still noticeable rocks that roll around in the wheels and banging on the touched-up car that must surely be from the 70’s.

So they drive and Zayn belts out Queen lyrics, headbanging violently with Harry gripping the right side of the wheel tightly for their own safety (although more his own than Zayn’s because in the short moments before death you tend to be selfish.) Zayn doesn’t notice this, and soon he leans back in his seat, guiding Harry through the narrow and darkening wooden paths with the sun deep in the rear-view mirror, dipping down to reflect on the car as it creeps forth among the trees in search of what Harry supposes is a cabin where he’ll find Louis. He’s stretching uncomfortably over to the driver’s seat, throwing constant glares at Zayn where he hums and waves his toes around in happiness, and all the man does is say “oh, left over here” and “easy in that turn; ‘s a sharp one” and Harry forces a laugh and twists the steering wheel to make Zayn knock into the door and the levers sticking out from there.

They park in a pit of mud, the wheels of the car spinning and sinking down to stay half-covered in the brown stickiness, but Zayn clasps his hands together in expectation and glance up at the small path leading through the woods in front and then turns to Harry as if to say “well hurry the fuck up then”. Harry climbs out of the mud and kicks his legs as he stumbles towards the other male, pouting in slight annoyance although cooling down as soon as they start to travel along the path and into the darkness of the leaves.

“You sure you want to be seeing him?” Zayn questions when the silence apparently grows too thick, scratching his neck to vary between sticking his hands into his pockets and playing with his hair.

“I kind of have to,” Harry says. There is a bang calling out through the air from somewhere far up ahead. He stills and sees Zayn do the same.

“What-“

“That would be Louis,” Zayn says matter-of-factly.

“That was a _gunshot_.”

“ _Warpath_ ,” Zayn rolls his eyes as if it would be the only logical explanation and _oh boy_ what has he gotten himself into.

“He’s not, like, shooting people, or whatever, right?”

Zayn laughs heartedly at that. “Nah. Just those clay pigeons.”

“But he has a gun?”

“Oh he’s got a gun alright.”

Harry pales and nearly faints right there by the mossy stones. Zayn looks at him anxiously.

“What the _fuck_ did you do?” he drawls as Harry blushes and hurries up his steps.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Oh, what? So just because I helped you find your sweetheart and actually took the time to fucking drive you here doesn’t mean that I will have the privilege to know what brought you here from the beginning. I see how it is; low Harry, really low.”

“We don’t even know each other!” Harry exclaims and jumps as a few birds escape from the grass beside them.

“My name is Zayn, I’m about your age and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing in Manchester; my favourite colour is yellow; I have a few sisters; my best friend is some guy pretending to be a Clint Eastwood; I have a roommate that picks her nose _still_ ; all pets I’ve had have either died of food poisoning, cars or starving and you kind of scare me.” Zayn breathes for a second.” Okay; your turn.”

“Your favourite colour is _yellow_?” Harry says as his mouth gapes like a fish on dry land.

“Yes and it is fucking glorious so tell me about yourself.”

“I-“ Harry gapes. A cabin appears slowly up ahead; a large light woody thing with a few windows scattered around on the walls together with a car of some sort and a pile of what looks like driftwood. It’s still far enough for Zayn to expect a coherent reply from Harry but close enough for him to stall the answer long enough for them to reach their destination.

“Oh look we’re here,” he says instead as he can’t figure anything out, points forward for Zayn to see that there is no more time to speak.

“I’ve been looking forward to this pretty much since I saw your face,” Zayn hums amusedly and Harry’s head snaps around to stare at him.

“Uh-“

“ _OH LOUIS_ ,” Zayn calls with his hands cupping his mouth to form a foghorn. Harry’s first instinct is to jump on his back, which he does, and throw both of them down as their faces inches the ground rapidly, which they do. Another gunshot goes off. Harry prays he hasn’t been shot.

“Mate,” Zayn whispers pointedly when he rolls Harry off of him and stand to brush himself off quickly, “I think you should go now. Talk to him or whatever.” Harry nods and says “Yeah, probably,” but he stands frozen when he catches a glimpse of a small grey bird shooting up through the air only to split and turn to dust at the sound of a bang. Louis stands on the ground, a thing resembling a shotgun (Harry has never been in contact with these kinds of things; it’s a new world) supported on his shoulder and held by his hands as he aims for the birds flying up. It should be too far of a distance between them for Harry to see the details on the younger man but he doesn’t fail to notice the glasses and sweatpants, and it should really be illegal for someone to look this heavenly; especially while killing animals which’s dust and fake organs spirals down in the grass over an exceptionally big area.

“I’m going back now,” Zayn acknowledges.

“Hnng,” Harry croaks and waves him off dismissively. Zayn leaves the location with frequent glances back at the love struck astronomer with heart eyes and the fuming twenty year old, hoping that things will work out because he will not be able to handle either of them sad and drunk, hanging over the bar counter and hiccupping “one more _please_.”

Harry stalks up to a spot metres from Louis (a safe distance, he reckons) and watches as the man freezes and lowers his gun to observe with a blank expression. This is one of those times when he starts to question everything about his life and the small things creating Harry Styles; all the flaws and twists he’s made of, and he wonders what the hell he’s doing out here in the woods with a man he met just a few weeks ago, who is holding a loaded gun on top of that and might very well shoot him. It’s not a shotgun, he now realizes.

Harry spreads his arms and yells, as the distance _is_ quite large, _safe_ , “I’ve lost my house!”

Louis cocks the head of the gun and throws it over his shoulder, hip jutting out and an eyebrow raised in a mocking _really?_ way. That’s how they stand for a many long lasting seconds, until Louis tips his chin up a bit and asks “Can you cook?” Harry stills for a moment, relishing the fact that he’s alive and that Louis hasn’t shot him yet.

He nods cautiously as he is still awaiting Louis’ next move. “Yeah. I can.”

Louis sighs heavily and starts to move forth, closing the space left between them and Harry forces himself to stand frozen in place. Louis grips his hands while the taller male holds each and every breath in expectation, only to have the gun dropped into his palms.

“Don’t drop it,” Louis mumbles, and then they’re moving out of the woods.

They ride in the murky green car parked by the cabin, after Louis has locked and made the place secure once again, and all that goes through Harry’s mind is a mix of Louis and death. His fingers curl around the pipe and point it out of the window instead of at the other man’s forehead, which he guesses is a step in the right direction. He is still alive, up and going, and travelling in a vehicle with his crush. This is going mighty fine.

Except for the silence standing like a wall, cutting off the car in two parts. One of them being Louis’ and the other Harry’s. It shouldn’t be so difficult to keep to himself, to not wriggle in his seat, to not think about what song would be most fitting for this moment, to not think about how perfect Louis looks in glasses. It is though; everything is difficult with Louis around. It’s so much more intense and vivid, the whole world is. Normally he would have just gotten out of bed if he’d been at home by himself, strolling around the house with a cup of cold coffee and searching for a pair of clean socks to keep his feet company while he stargazes.

The first day at the zoo is all a blur to him. There are no sharp, clean cut lines for him to hold onto anymore, nothing to keep him grounded these days. He’s falling, bracing himself for the inevitable landing without the ability to see who is going to catch him. The only visible thing in his memories is Louis’ smile, and his warmth; things that are completely washed away now as they drive in the growing darkening of the town.

But Harry is still alive and going somehow, and he thinks that the ledge he’s gripping with the last of his powers is slowly pulling him up again. He can stay grounded.

 

Louis drives to his flat, drags his feet up the stairs and let the door swing open on its own accord, Harry carefully trailing behind with the gun clasped in his shaking and aching hands. He stands fully dressed in the hallway as Louis strides into the bedroom, leaving a narrow opening in which Harry can see him change clothes (which he doesn’t since privacy is a thing) and then struts out to slump in the couch underneath the hill of blankets rising like skyscrapers over the living room. Harry swallows and shifts nervously where he is stood, arms heavy and eyes flickering around as they try to stay off Louis as much as possible while he figures out what to do.

When he has stood there for a good seven minutes Louis leans forth and grabs the remote of the table, muting the TV and turns to him, asking “are you just gonna stand there, or…?” So Harry manages to not fall over his own feet when taking off his shoes and setting the gun down gently by the front door, tiptoeing over to the living room. Louis lets the TV play again and from the hours spent previous day Harry knows that this is 2 ½ Men, but all he pays attention to is the thick socks hugging Louis’ feet and the fact that he’s all covered in pillows and blankets up to his nose. This reminds the older man that Louis is in fact still sick, so he sneaks off to the kitchen and navigates in there to find the components to a cup of hot tea. It takes a while, he’ll admit, but it’s only the second time he is in the flat so prides himself on getting it done under ten minutes.

He strolls out into the living room again to see Louis peeking at him curiously and his pupils dilate a tiny bit when he spots the cup of tea. Harry dares to move closer to put it down on the table but Louis takes it before it has touched the surface, glancing up before starting to sip it in silence. The audience laughs on the TV as Harry watches him drink. He steps back again and his lips curl into a small smile when Louis sneezes, continuing to frown at the TV with knuckles whitening around the cup.

Neither of them speaks for the entire afternoon; only small uncertain glances from Harry and quick glares from Louis which they send each other as the room and flat gradually grows darker in the nightfall. Harry walks through the place to turn on all necessary lights, stopping outside of Louis’ room before turning back, and then drops to the floor in the living room again, leaning warily against the edge of the couch where Louis’ feet are. His bum has gone from numb to burning to ice cold in the hours spent on this floor in this particular position, but to be frank he doesn’t have the guts to move or even a single, petty sound. Doesn’t want a too loud breath to slip, or for his body to relax enough to slide down the armrest of the couch, perhaps to knock or nudge Louis and set him off so that he’ll finally realize what an ass Harry is and throw him straight out in front of a bus because that’s only what Harry expects after what he’s done.

But then again; he doesn’t really want to sit quiet either and let time pass and for faith to have its way with him and toss him around like a ragdoll. He wants to grasp for once, to feel and hold it between his fingers in triumph. He wants to touch and breathe and he _wants_ to so much. He’s an ant and everyone else are trees or rocks with these shells around them, shielding them for unwanted attention and standing tall and out of reach for him, alike gigantic mountain after mountain glowering down at him. He doesn’t know if Louis is a tree or a rock, if he’s more of a waterfall than a call riding along with the wind, but he himself is an insect, and they never live as long. Whether it’d be a rainy day or the foot of man that killed him he would die eventually, and so will everything else around him. Even the stars.

He’s tired of just being, however, but it’s still not enough for him to glance up at Louis and speak his thoughts or apologize or _move_. It doesn’t work that way down here on Earth.

“You should stop that,” Louis says quietly. Harry shakes his head to zoom back into reality and look at the man curiously.

“Stop what?” he asks, as it is impossible for Louis to have read his train of thought.

“You grip your wrists when you’re agitated, like scratch them red and stuff,” Louis shrugs, “you shouldn’t do that.” Harry feels now that his right hand is curled around his wrists tightly, nails cutting into his skin to the point where the skin may snap at any second. He proceeds to avoid Louis with his eyes completely and play with an old McDonald’s cup left for dead under the couch with dust collecting around it, grabbing onto the edges and following with it out into the freedom which the living room brought.

“I’m sorry,” Harry finally musters up the courage to say. The sound on the TV disappears once again but Louis doesn’t make a sound. Harry turns to see the younger man with his gaze fixated on the still moving screen, one of the large winter socks down to his ankle and the other still stretching up his smooth legs. Louis’ feet slide down to fold underneath him and the tonne of blankets and he shifts uncomfortably before settling with lying down to watch Harry where the male sits and throws a cup between his fingers uneasily.

“So you lost your house?” Louis asks. Harry shivers at his voice and surprisingly soft tone and gulps. He chooses his next words and sentences carefully.

“It wasn’t exactly _my_ house,” he says, anyway, and it hurts to not be able to shut up for once.

“Oh,” Louis puffs in a breath of well needed air as he wriggles his toes and crosses them over each other as if to stall reality and everything that it brings with. “That’s a bummer.”

“I guess,” Harry nods weakly and tips his head to count the floorboards until he sees that blankets and laundry are covering up the entire flat and there is no way in hell that he’s going to find out the exact number of floorboards in here if he doesn’t move things, which he doesn’t have the guts to do as he and Louis are starting to get on normal speaking terms once again.

Louis clicks his tongue after a while and blinks slowly, gazing down at Harry tiredly and if Harry isn’t completely blind then there is a slight curve upwards at the corner of his kissable mouth. “How’s the wife?” he asks in all seriousness, and Harry can’t help the quiet chuckle escaping the prison behind his lips. His hands fly up to cover up but Louis just smiles kindly and extra wide as he rolls his eyes and moves to a sitting position in the couch, patting the spot next to him; silent sounds filling the room where his palm meets the fabric of each seat. Harry shuffles over awkwardly and settles on the spot closest to the mountain of heat. Louis’ face goes blank at that and Harry feels his pulse pick up and his heart strangling him.

“I’m not mad at you,” Louis says quietly and Harry feels a pair of feet crawl up to rest in his lap, being replaced by calves, then knees, until it stops with Louis’ thighs on top of his. His body is limp, and with the sickness in mind Harry’s fingers wander to rest just below his left knee, massaging effectively to relieve any kind of stress or feelings alike that Louis may bear.

“Well,” he continues, “I’m pissed, actually. _Was_.” Harry nods in understanding.

“Yet here I am,” he mumbles. Louis laughs lowly at that and Harry feels the lovely sound run up through his body to glue itself onto his brain.

“Couldn’t let Harry Styles live on the streets, now could we?” he questions rhetorically. Harry attempts to ignore the full name.

“Thank you Louis,” he says with a voice still not going high enough to be counted as actual speech but high enough for it to be heard.

“No problem, Haz,” Louis mumbles. When Harry looks over his eyes are closed and his chest is rising steadily and falling in a ragged way that he should be worrying the older man, but all his will and power is currently used to keep quiet and not scream because not only is everything (well, many things, at least) excellent between them, Louis has also taken him in to stay if even for a night.

Harry thinks that he can allow himself to be a teenager with a silly crush just for now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this got out of hand a bit

Harry has been living with Louis for a week, sleeping on the couch and some nights next to Louis under a duvet, cuddled up together in peace as sleep takes them and checks them in at his hotel. Most evenings were spent in the kitchen with Louis hanging not so discreetly over Harry’s shoulder as the older kept his promise and cooked for them both; candles filling the room and flat with Santana playing as Louis did his best to save the burning dinner while Harry was off to the bathroom for a quick moment. When said man returned it was to blackening steaks and what looked like fried potatoes, although he knew that it was impossible. Louis had clung to him and spewed out apology after apology while laughing at how Harry’s face looked as he spotted their supposed dinner. They had ended up on the living room floor – on the fluffy white carpet more precisely – with two bowls of cereal and glasses of wine which had been handed out to everyone at the observatory as a reward for their hard work and how far they’d come in these past years, so it wasn’t one of the finest kinds, but small matters like that didn’t matter.

Louis’ wrist went more lax the further the evening went and soon Harry had to save the carpet from gaining irremovable stains when the glass in the younger man’s had fell to the floor. Louis was well aware that he was getting drunk, but he just laughed without a single worry in his life and rested his palm and forehead on Harry’s shoulder as the taller got up to wash off his wine covered hands, a tiny evidence of amusement on his lips that had reddened from the strawberries in the cereal combined with the heat and wine in the living room.

After that they had ended up leaned against each other in front of the couch and watching a Portuguese film where the actors kept speaking with German accents instead of their mother tongue. Harry would point out that they’d probably be better off speaking pure German or just plain old English, and Louis had asked where Portuguese was spoken as an official language, so that’s how they ended up scrolling through the internet and finding joy in what minority languages actually existed that they had no clue about; some favourites being Kpasam and Ogbogolo.

The glasses of wine and numerous bottles of expired beer soon ceased to flow and they were left with hiccupping and bumping into furniture as they made their way to try to save the cold and burnt food from hours earlier. They did in fact succeed to some level as they minutes later were once again sat on the floor and feeding each other; food slipping from the fork to splatter over the floor and Louis dared Harry to lick it off – which he did with a smile followed by a grimace when it wasn’t food he met down there. Louis cracked up and patted his shoulder soothingly.

Harry watched – taking his time to wipe his mouth from the spit hanging onto him instead of following the piece of non-food – as Louis stumbled up with a giggle and disappeared into the bedroom where his presence was known by several loud thuds following each other rapidly. The shorter man returned to the living room with a bunch of plastic guitars with buttons in bright colours and dropped them right before Harry’s knees. Louis winked at him and started to untangle them from each other, asking if he’d “Ever played Guitar Hero?”

Which essentially leads to where they currently stand; picking their absolute first song to co-play; a fatal decision Louis has put Harry on. During that time Louis has managed to spill water on half of himself, so he’s taken his sweet time changing and groans when he comes back to see Harry still scrolling with a death grip on the small guitar so that he is basically leaning over it. He’s chosen the “pussy-style” by sitting down as he plays; something that Louis previously only scoffed at.

“Just pick one,” he orders and Harry gazes up at him.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Harry asks slowly to keep his sentence steady and not let it vibrate with alcohol.

“I have water and milk,” Louis says equally slow-paced and sits down next to the curly haired male to lay a hand on his knee. Harry smiles dopily and blinks heavily as if he’s forgotten where he is. “And I think we have juice,” Louis hiccups. He flies up from the couch again and nearly flips the box of his wide game collection with his twitchy foot. “I c-can get it for you!” he exclaims happily.

“I’ve picked a song,” Harry declares in the same second, deciding that he does not want to Louis to leave. Absolutely out of the question.

“Yeah?” Louis seeks a clear answer as his eyes move to the loading screen and he adjusts the guitar hanging from his neck and shoulder.

“A _song_ ,” Harry whispers.

“ _Yeah_.” They pause long enough for the screen to load fully and the title “ _Welcome to the jungle_ ” flashes by. “Hell yeah,” Louis confirms, then notices that their speed is the same, and from what little to none information he obtained earlier from the drunk man then he has not played in years, if even at all. “Harry.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re- you know you’re playing on Expert, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You-“

Harry puts a finger before his mouth and sighs gleefully. “Trust me on this one sweetcheeks.”

It proves to be a very interesting few songs that follows after Harry proves to have scored 96% as his comeback score; something that beats Louis’ with a few and made the younger man upset. While it is true that Harry hasn’t played since he was in his early teens it also means that the fire created by competition is now catching and alighting Louis as well. They soon leave the co-operation stage to battle each other, arguing about what song to pick next until their dazed brains figure out that, oh, they pick every other song and then let the other one choose.

“No darling, you wanna pick Black Sabbath,” Louis scolds, hanging from off Harry’s back with arms and legs tightly wrapped around the firm torso of the astronomer and his guitar abandoned on the couch. Harry is now standing, eyes wide and mouth gaping as he scrolls through the set list.

“Fuck you, I wanna go with Rolling Stones,” Harry whines and is about to press confirm when Louis smacks him across the face. “Excuse you,” Harry grumbles when Louis determinately goes for the controller. “IT’S MY TURN TO PICK,” Harry shouts shrilly.

“BUT YOUR CHOICES SUCK,” Louis replies just in time before Harry shakes him off and hears him land with a low “oof”.

“MY CHOICES ARE EXCELLENT,” he continues to defend and the mix of music from the TV changes constantly. “See; Rise Against, Weezer, Poison, The Strokes- OH LOOK THEY HAVE CHERUB ROCK, SMASHING PUMPKINS.”

“The Strokes’ one,” Louis mumbles from below and Harry yelps before hurrying to bend down and help his friend up.

“But I wanna-“

“Harry, please.”

“You choose that one and I’ll choose Cherub Rock.”

“Harry-“

“Nope, my turn.” He is filled with nostalgia when the familiar beat of the drums pick up and almost melts as the guitars join in and creates a heavenly sound that Louis only seems to enjoy because Harry is euphoric about the spectacle. Still; in the middle of the song Harry pauses and disconnects his guitar which leaves Louis to stare at him in confusion. “Alright,” Harry says with a small smile, “give me half an hour and I’ll prepare something really nice. You can just play if you want.” Louis shrugs and proceeds to lie tiredly in the couch and play Reptilia by himself as Harry snatches the male’s phone to gain access to Spotify.

“I have,” Harry slurs sixty-eight minutes later as he lands next to a half sleeping Louis on the couch with a hissing noise coming from underneath him.

“You have what?” Louis mumbles and blinks tiredly. He’s been fighting sleep ever since his fingers started to ache from the guitar playing, which was around the time Harry said he’d be ready – and Louis doesn’t quite know why neither of them is snoring obnoxiously yet.

“ _I have_ ,” Harry breathes; then makes another pause that earns a sleepy glare, “a list.”

“That’s great Hazza. Terrific. Goodnight.”

“No, no, no,” Harry pouts and rouses the man awake with a few too hard shakes to his lithe body, “you can’t sleep. I’ve made a list for us.” Louis sits up with dark eyes and an expressionless face and Harry’s previous off-the-chart courage starts to vaporize. “You know, like a collections of songs that- I was- when we played I just- it’s songs that make me think of you a bit? Songs that are fit for dancing because I really want to dance with you? So, that’s what I’ve been doing for a while.”

Louis swallows and his gaze wavers for a second. “What songs?”

Harry scrambles for the phone and unlocks it to read the titles and bands out loud with trembling hands. “Well, like, uh, Alone, Africa, and Angie, I Miss You…” He shrugs a bit and watches the couch intensely as the sense of stupidity and embarrassment creeps up on him and spreads through his veins. “They’re, you know, good songs.” He hears Louis shuffle around to pull his legs crossed under his bum and then there is a brief silence in which Harry pleads silently that Louis will just _say_ something that hopefully isn’t an insult or words of a sober mind. Instead he feels thin fingers remove the phone from his fist and he peeks up to see Louis look at the screen with curiosity sparkling in his eyes where the white light from below doesn’t shine. Harry sees his lips curl into a warm smile that evolves into a grin when he gazes up at Harry through his lashes with the candlelight painting his features.

“You wanna dance with me?” he asks quietly. Harry takes the presented opportunity to nod a bit over-excitedly and Louis chuckles and scoots forward to wrap his arms around the taller’s neck as he cuddles his nose and mouth into Harry’s left shoulder where the older man can feels his small breaths; filled with promises of things he doesn’t dare to think about. Harry’s hand moves in up and down motions along the other male’s spine and sighs contently when Louis moves even closer to twist his body into a more comfortable and not so stretching position, the two starting to rock back and forth slowly.

“I haven’t even put on the music yet,” Harry murmurs hoarsely, his voice small and Louis continues to smile at him were he is currently resting in Harry’s arms. There is some fumbling and a tiny round black device on the table that beeps loudly, then music fills the living room and Louis slides off the couch to reach out a hand for Harry to take.

“Technically this should be the other way around as it was your idea,” Louis speaks in a puff of air passing his up quirked lips, “but may I?” Harry is speechless when he lets his fingers slide in between Louis’ and allows himself to be led out onto the slightly dusty and coffee stained dance floor with Louis’ hands moving down to settle gently on his waist. He mirrors the movements and uses the light grip to pull the smaller body closer to his; a tender smile of his own decorating his lips when they sway, minor movements around and around as their bodies are pressed close.

Harry is so relieved that he’s able to breathe in this moment; this forming memory he creates with a person who walked into his life with the possibly ugliest uniform in the entire UK and quite literary took the words out of his mouth and swallowed them up. Harry suddenly pales and freezes; his whole expression going numb and blank to then reveal deep pink spots on his cheeks and the tip of rose turns to almost crimson.

“What?” Louis asks with a laugh but Harry notices the genuine concern in the word.

“I asked you about cats,” Harry says, very, very slowly and Louis’ worry turns into amusement with the word “fond” practically written across his forehead.

“There you are wrong my dear,” Louis mumbles and jumps up on his toes to come eye-to-eye with the curly haired man, “you asked me about tigers.”

“I can’t believe that you didn’t run at the first sight of me,” Harry admits with a tint of blush covering his dimples that are on faint display, slow-dancing once again to the beat of Heart with Ann Wilson’s voice just about screaming in their ears; mere vague background noise as they swirl around. Louis is beaming with the warmth of a thousand suns in his teeth.

“If it helps you did look very handsome.”

Harry blinks and leans down for a quick peck on the lips. “’m glad to hear that.” He peers down at the gathering of hair brushing against his chin and hums in satisfaction. “By the way; how did the whole kangaroo-situation work out?”

“You didn’t see the papers?” Louis asks, completely stunned, so Harry shrugs and stares longingly down at the pair of tempting lips before him. “Well, they’d somehow ended up in the fountain by the Green Owl-“

“Where there are always kids drowning?” Harry cuts in and Louis nods.

“Yeah, they kicked anyone who tried to approach them, so we all ended up with minor injuries once they were back in their enclosure.”

“Didn’t see you limp,” Harry points out.

Louis bites his lip, “Perhaps you didn’t look close enough.”

“Oh, I did,” Harry purrs, “believe me.”

They stare for a single second longer but that’s enough for Louis to bark out a heartfelt laugh and his head flops down to send heating vibrations deep through Harry’s chest, his fingers clawing intermittently at the astronomers side while he cackles in that high-pitched tone Harry adores. Harry just succeeds in catching him when Louis’ chuckles die out and his body falls limp into the taller’s arms, resting there when Harry lifts him up to tuck him in under the blankets by the couch. Harry sits next to his side, shaking his head in a sort of affection that crashes onto him like wave after wave with emotions he isn’t ready to deal with yet. Louis is still smiling happily in his alcoholic slumber, fingers squeezing Harry’s thumb, and the older male nips hungrily to his earlobe from wandering up his neck. He settles with a final kiss to the far corner of Louis’ lips, having to slap himself to actually move away and let the poor male sleep.

Harry sits back on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees and a dopey smile printed on his lips like thick black headlines in a newspaper; regarding the sleeping male on the couch who is beginning to snore heavily. People are most at peace in their sleep, he figures, and this seems to fit with the current situation. It’s all cool until Louis’ lips part and he breathes through his snotty nose and drool starts to spill from his gape, Harry rushing out into the kitchen on resisting legs and crouching by his side and gathering up the spit with some paper.

Once done, he is probably falling harder than before for the intoxicated man.

 

The morning is filled with hangovers and tonnes of orange juice.

They had both been snappy towards due to the pounding and worsening in the hearing sense and they had argued whether it would be best to drink apple juice or orange juice to cure the thickness in their skulls. After minutes of almost growling and glaring Louis had gave in with a “fine” and “we’ll have your fucking oranges”, so now here they were; silently seated in untouchable agony with headaches and stomachs that screamed protests for food and paraded around with riot signs. He figured that it was most likely _not_ the ideal moment to belt out the lyrics to “ _Drunk_ ”.

Harry had gotten up quietly with when Louis just sipped the juice without a word to fix them some toast, finding ham and cheese in the fridge which he placed on the table for the other man to use. Louis had just glanced up at him with a raised brow and Harry had scratched his scalp, sighed heavily, and fallen down on his chair once again with his finger tracing his cheekbones up and down. At that it seemed as if Louis had taken on an unspoken challenge to piss the astronomer off because he started tapping his fingers against the table and straight up ignoring Harry, even as said man reaches out to grab Louis’ empty glass of juice and the younger male “subtly” moves it over to the other side of the table.

That has been about five hours ago, and they’ve been watching romcoms for two; mashed up together in the tiny couch and breathing each other’s everlasting morning breath. Harry feels weird as he hasn’t brushed his teeth yet, but at the moment he doesn’t dare to utter a single sound – only gazing over at Louis who sits biting his nails with wide eyes fixated on the telly which makes the screen reflect and move in his eyes.

It’s getting dark when Harry finally gets up. He’s sliding out form half under Louis’ leg, an inaudible whine coming from the smaller male which Harry ignores, and fishes out his phone from his pocket when he enters the dark kitchen. Without glancing away or scanning through the many messages he’s been sent he dials Niall’s number, hoping that the TV will drown out his voice with the forced laughs and cheesy lines.

“ _What the fuck are-_ “

“Hey,” Harry whispers with an awkward smile while looking out through the window, regarding the happy kids bouncing down the street below the flats in the late night sunshine.

“ _No, where the fuck are you?_ ” Niall’s voice is boiling and Harry can envision his tomato face when they’ll eventually cross paths. “ _I’ve got your stuff, by the way. You’re WELCOME._ ”

“Thanks,” Harry mumbles, trying to lace as much apology and guilt into his tone as he can but seems to have failed when Niall lets out a stressed laugh.

“ _Do you care to tell me where they hell you’ve been holding up these days while I’ve been lacking sleep out of worry for your sorry ass?_ ”

“Yeah, I’m at Louis’.”

Niall cackles heartfelt and Harry is not sure if it’s most sensible to be terrified or glad that the anger has been washed away. “ _Maaaateee_ ,” Niall giggles. Harry can feel his hand patting his shoulder. “ _Congratu-fucking-lations; so he didn’t kill ya?_ ”

“No,” Harry breathes in ragged relief, “I can’t fathom why though, I’m just thankful for my life.”

“ _Well, good for you, but you still need to get your shit together and- hang on a sec, does that mean you’ve been at Lou’s the entire time?_ ”

“Yeah.”

“ _These nine days?_ ”

“Yeah.” He should probably feel embarrassed when he thinks back at what his life has become these past months.

“ _Does your phone work?_ ”

“Yes, and I’m sorry for not calling or texting but it just didn’t quite cross my mind…?”

“ _Dick_.”

“Thanks buddy!”

“ _I was speaking, yes? Uh, oh yeah, you need to sort out all of your shit- stuff, I mean, and get the fuck back to the life outside of Louis’ aura, deal?_ ”

“Niall-“

“ _Do we have a deal Styles?_ ”

“I’m a grown man, I can handle these kind of things on my own believe-“

“ _Deal?_ ”

Harry sighs. “Yeah. Deal.”

“ _Alright, I’m expecting at least a text from you later._ ”

“Of course.”

“ _Take care mate._ ”

“You too.”

“ _Love ya._ ”

“Love you, bye.”

Niall is still the first to hang up, even as Harry goes for the _end call_ button faster than lightning. When he spins around Louis is standing leant in the doorway with folded arms and hands peeking out from the clothing and blankets he has all wrapped around himself in a cocoon.

“You alright?” the man asks softly, his eyes trailing from the floor up to Harry’s eyes via his body, shivering with the lack of proper trousers.

“Uh, yeah,” Harry nods too quickly and forms fists with his hands to not grab his wrists. “That was, eh, my co-work- I mean like, my friend, who has all of my stuff ‘cause I sort of got kicked out of the house, but you already know that, so…” He shrugs and mentally kills himself.

“Good to hear,” Louis mumbles, his smile bland and his eyes so, so tired.

“You should meet him sometime,” Harry says as his fingers go to absently scratch at his forehead, “My friend, I mean. Niall. My, eh, he’s a star geek too.”

Louis chuckles and yeah, Harry can feel his bones rattle in the most pleasant way. “Star geek?”

“At the most.”

“Can’t be as intense as you though.”

“Oh he is. Believe me,” Harry grins and slides down on a kitchen chair.

“You’re not coming back?” Louis wonders in disappointment, his shoulder slumping even further than they already are. The words seep into his skin and grab his heart, tugging and clawing at it and _of course_ he’s coming back.

“Of course,” he gasps, the sentence having taking him by breath stealing surprise, and he gets to his feet once more, stumbling and hearing Louis chuckle lowly in response which has to count as a small win for Styles. “I, er, just thought that- I was gonna- I’ll shut up now.” Louis takes his hand in his and together they move out in the living room again; Harry’s face redder than lava and hotter than the sun.

“My circle of friends is relatively small,” Louis muses once they are huddled up in front of the TV once more, sharing body heat under the blankets, “I mean; you’ve met Zayn and Candice, then there is Ed of course…” He trails off in thought and Harry glances to his side. Louis has his eyes set on the show playing, so Harry decides to run his fingers through the light copper hair of his friend which earns a small sigh from the man. It feels like they actually _are_ something, since Harry has lived here all week and shared bed with Louis and all this talk about meeting each other’s contacts – it’s nice, is all he describe it as. It’s nice and painful.

“Harry?” Louis wonders quietly.

“Yes?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

He furrows his eyebrows. “Candice…?”

“I was asking if we could meet up with Niall tomorrow, you know, getting to know each other and you can sort out some things. I thought it’d be fun.” Louis’ voice loses its powers the further he speaks the sentence until it’s an insecure whisper begging for confirmation of any sort.

“Yeah, we can- I’ll- should I call him now?” Harry stammers with his arm resting around Louis’ bony shoulders sucking up excessive warmth, “or we can drop by in the morning; I swear to God all the times I’ve woken with him in my kitchen-“

He isn’t sure if he cuts himself off or if it’s Louis’ smile that does it, but he’s been bereft of speech and there’s that.

“You have keys to each other’s places?” Louis asks in eminent amusement and leans into Harry’s chest. The astronomer’s heartbeat picks up a dangerous pace.

“We do,” he confirms, trying to steady his vibrating voice, “after certain… things happened we decided that it would be best to have twenty-four hours access to each other’s homes.”

“Sounds nice,” Louis mumbles, letting a tiny yawn slip past his thin lips.

“Not really.”

“So we’re meeting him tomorrow?”

Harry regards him for a while; takes in his soft skin and the shadow from his eyelashes, the vibrant glow in his eyes and how relaxed his posture is, like he is fully satisfied with sitting here in Harry’s arms. “Yeah,” he says lowly, “we’ll pay him a visit.”

 

It’s late at night when the idea resurfaces within him; like a stubborn neighbour knocking on the insides of his brain with a sledgehammer time and time again, waiting with the whole wide world’s patience for him to shut up and listen. Really listen.

Shadows are clawing at him where he lies drifting in and out of a restless slumber in the chilly living room. Summer has strapped on its sneakers and is on a run away from England with long flying steps over the cooling earth, escaping and leaving trail after trail of emptiness behind it. It’s that stage where autumn is still new to the world but it’s still not summer because the leaves abandon their green shades and the grass turns dull, alike the way the sky darkens into grey and black.

Harry has thrown off all blankets from his body; instead grabbing a hot cup of tea from the kitchen and sipping it in the darkness while trying to listen to Louis’ long breaths where he sleeps in the bedroom. He doesn’t hear anything tonight, no matter how silent he attempts to be, no matter how many breaths he skips to sharpen his hearing.

It’s late at night and he can’t sleep.

When times consumes him completely there are silent pads of feet joining the incoherent slurping he utters, a weight dipping in the far end of the couch next to him and as he turns he sees Louis sit curled up there gazing at him through the shadows, arms around his legs, holding them up where he’s hidden under Harry’s shirt. Harry puts the tea down and is about to greet the man as Louis speaks up flatly.

“When I was fifteen I was diagnosed with depression,” is what he says, a mere whisper in the room that falls to the ground right after Harry has obtained the information. He swallows and his gaze wavers to seek comfort in the black embracing them, seeping in from the night outside. “It- my father had died a month or two earlier and I guess I wasn’t coping that well; you know, stopped eating after a while and started losing sleep.” He shrugs a bit and scratches his nose.

“And, okay, I wasn’t the happiest of kids back then but it wasn’t like I was suicidal either. But yeah, mum figured that my father’s death was what had triggered it so I started seeing a therapist. James was his name. I remember it because it was so plain and ordinary; like, who the fuck isn’t a James?” Louis licks his lips and wriggles his naked toes, Harry’s gaze solely fixated on him in the dark. “Uh, it took me three years to get ‘healthy’ again and rid of the strangling feeling, and you’ve probably figured it out but that’s what I wanted to tell you before. Before your meeting – about a week or so ago. So. Yeah.”

The message is clear and simple enough for a child to understand, but Harry still sits puzzled as he stares because this is too grave to come from Louis’ lips, too horrid to envision- So he doesn’t. He shifts uncomfortably, holding in with his question and regards Louis who is observing him nervously.

“Say something,” the smaller man whispers.

“That- that makes it two years ago since…?” Louis confirms the statement with a meek nod. Harry gasps a shaky breath. “Christ.”

Louis’ mouth quirks up a bit. “What?”

“It’s just- it surprises me.”

“Well,” Louis settles back in the couch with a content sigh and Harry swears that his eyes sparkle in the non-existent light shooting through the oily windows, “it _was_ two years ago.”

Harry can only shrug and fiddle with his fingers.

“I heard you talk,” Louis voices a second or two later, Harry’s head snapping up to look at him once again. “In your- you talk in your sleep.”

“When was this?”

“This entire week, back and forth at various hours of the day.” The way Louis’ lips are smiling without actually smiling at him is so childlike and he loves it – especially with those big blue eyes staring at intently above. “Sometimes it’s not even night. In between the songs you sing while you cook you can begin mutter incoherent things.” He cocks his head. “I’d love to know what is going on in your head Harry.”

The elder coughs. “Most, like, boring stuff. Stars and food and a horrid lack of sleep and schedules and different paths outside to-“ Louis gets up and snatches Harry’s hand in the middle of his little speech, yanking him to his feet and out in the hallway to step into some worn-out slippers with a furry kitten plastered to the front.

“Of course,” the man keeps mumbling to himself, making sure that Harry is standing still before flying into the flat again to gather something.

“Uh.”

“Ah, here,” Louis beams and shoves a dark indigo flashlight to Harry’s chest as he passes hurriedly with a beanie pulled down over his right eye and bare legs shining in the moonlight seeping in, flinging on a jacket that’s smaller than the borrowed shirt he has draped over him.

“Where-“

“No, no, no!” he laughs and peers back at Harry where the man still stands confused in the hallway, “just hush and you’ll see, star geek.” It’s not like Harry now has much of a choice in what to do, but he does decide to step out into the black staircase and let Louis lock the door hastily and drag him up the stairs with stumbling steps.

They’re on the roof, he realizes as soon as the thick metal door slams shut and crates an echo bouncing over Manchester. It’s freakishly cold outside which reminds him that the summer is ending and cut short with sharp violent winds filled with leaves storming town.

Louis ignores all of this and guides him to the middle of the roof, far away from the step edges much to Harry’s thankfulness. He slings his hands up to squeeze Harry’s shoulders and his cheeks are already being bitten by the night air, turning into a light shade of pink that glows and radiates warmth off of him in the streetlights shine. And he’s practically naked from the waist down.

“Alright, I need you to turn around and cover your ears,” he instructs and Harry blinks slowly. Louis laughs again. That lovely sound that makes Harry wonder if he snorted something while they were talking. “I won’t throw you off the roof, I promise,” and he says it sincerely and with a hand over his heart and Harry just wants to cry.

“Yeah. Okay. Cool.” And then he’s turning around to put two fingers in his ears. There is earwax latching onto his fingertips and his noses scrunches in disgust with the anticipation of whatever’s about to come popping like popcorn in his gut. There is only so much time he can spend swirling his fingers around to scratch before curious eats him up and he’s removing the yellow stickiness that now is his skin, glancing back to be met by darkness and a certain warmth over his eyes. He feels Louis’ weight sway back and forth behind him and his fingers scissor where they cover Harry’s eyelids.

“Nu-uh,” Louis scolds and breathes into his neck. Harry is walking backwards now with Louis acting eyes for him and looking out for the movements of his thin legs. A laugh flies out over the rooftops when the two of them fall down onto something soft that definitely isn’t the concrete floor beneath them, so Harry finally manages to tear Louis’ delicate hands from his face and turn around.

There is a large variety of wine coloured candles stocked inside a wide lantern with black dragons of steel riding up the sides of it, and it stands about one foot from the chequered blanket they’ve tumbled down on. It casts light upon the gathering of different sized telescopes lying in a heap in front of them. Louis’ hands are frozen, still trying their best to cover up Harry’s sight, but they fall as the curly haired male sits up and takes the flashlight to point in their surroundings.

“Stargazing,” Louis says smoothly, naturally, and scrambles up to cross his bare legs underneath him, “I know that this is basically what you do all day long, day in and day out, so I figured that you could teach me some things about space and Earth. What do you say?” His teeth are sinking into his red bottom lip while he waits for a reply and Harry can’t tear his eyes off of him.

He’s so fucked.

“Yes,” he speaks somewhat dumbly and Louis resumes his beaming which is not something that Harry can actually handle right now, but he’ll try nonetheless. And, hopefully, he will gain some time to slumber after this.

He could not have been more wrong.

They are later awake to be met by angry rays of a sick sun rising and shooting down in their eyes.

But for now it is still night, and as Harry glances over to his friend he sees said man supporting a pair of all too familiar glasses and scanning over pages of one of the atlases he’d smuggled with them up here, a long finger joining his gaze. Harry is sure he himself is acting like a creep with the way he watches the younger man, but, maybe that’s alright. It should be, with the way Louis is looking and everything Harry figures that it would be cruel to _not_ let him stare. Which is exactly what Louis so kindly points out.

“You’re staring,” is what he says, too shyly for Harry’s liking, and he’ll be damned if that isn’t reddening cheeks.

“I am,” he affirms quietly and props his head up on his elbow so that he can eye Louis properly like he deserves. He does deserve so much.

“Bored of the planets already?”

“Nah.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

Harry lets his face break out in a slow grin as he sits up fully and leans forward for good measure. “Becauseee,” he drawls, “you are more interesting than all the shit up there.”

“Calling your profession ‘shit’ isn’t classy,” Louis chuckles and his gaze flicker between Harry’s eyes that are close enough for him to memorize perfectly and thoroughly.

“I’m classy?” Harry asks hopefully.

Louis rolls his eyes and presses away the astronomers face with a cool palm to his cheek and Harry drops back down on the blanket with a rumbling laugh. He hears a clatter and then Louis has rolled over to straddle him, pinning his wrists down and letting his hair brush against Harry’s chin where the younger man’s head hangs.

“Easy,” Harry mumbles and blows a bit of air on his fringe to push it aside. Louis’ smile meets him, wide and bright, and he feels said man’s leg inching up his own. The blue-eyed male hums softly and nuzzles his head into Harry’s neck and Harry lets out a groan as he feels teeth graze the skin.

“We should do this again sometime,” he breathes and grips Louis’ hair gently to remove him enough for them to have a decently serious conversation.

“Definitely,” Louis grins and dives back to assault his neck.

“N-no,” he croaks and attempts a sneaky shuffling away from the light body atop his. Louis radiates actual hurt and bewilderment and Harry bites his tongue and pinches his thigh to stay put. “I meant _this_ ,” he gestures weakly in between them while stowing away thoughts of Louis’ mouth, “here. Me sp- me being at your place a-and-“

Louis kisses him then, thinks of it as the perfect moment, apparently, to capture his lips and suck them into his mouth, and Harry would be angry but he just can’t be bothered or find the strength to physically do anything about it because he is in love with this. He is in love with the touching they’re sharing, the laughs, the glances, the kissing and the mere presence of Louis makes him glow like a thousand fucking suns and he fucking loves it. He breathes Louis, inhales him with every breath needed for his survival and he doesn’t think he can quit this. And he has accepted that. Embraced his fate with wide arms and facing that goddamned smile.

“I want to be yours,” is how he forms his question that has been hanging over him for a long, long time now, and it’s a sigh in the space between Louis’ lips when they’ve parted for the fraction of a second. Harry whines and pulls him back in on the verge of crying because he just wants so much and he needs and he’s fucked up. “Louis,” he keeps rambling, “Louis, Louis, Louis.” And it’s sort of weird when he thinks about what Niall pointed out all those weeks ago; to think that Louis is twenty years old and still full of life when he himself is twenty-three and has been in love and had his heart broken once, been kicked out of a house that wasn’t his own and gone through a divorce.

“Harry,” Louis moans and shifts away to press his hands to Harry’s chest, “Haz.”

All he can say to that is, “Please,” and Louis starts kissing him again. Then he realizes that he has yet to receive an answer to his question, so he begins with a, “but I-“

Thankfully, Louis doesn’t let him finish. “You’ll be mine if I’ll be yours,” he gasps from the lack of oxygen, and Harry is positive that they are both wasted but he will not point that out. And there’s that.

“Okay,” he croaks. He must be sobbing by now, finally. “Fuck. Alright.”

It’s an awful thought to cross his mind, really, but he thinks that he is happy now.

 

Everyone is back at work and Niall is climbing the walls. It’s raining outside and he has not brought an umbrella; his co-workers are having a fierce debate over some rugby game that took place this weekend and Harry has fallen off the face of earth. The observatory is (and Lord give him strength for saying this) too quiet and sad glowing without the curly haired fucker around; and Niall misses him. On his own there are just a lot of empty spaces to fill out; a too large amount for him to manage and it feels like he’s leaking happiness.

“No,” he replies flatly for the fifty-eightieth time that day, “no, I do not give a tiny rat’s ass; I’m sorry, but pick lilies.”

“But,” John stammers, and yes, it is a boy, strangely enough, “but lilies aren’t really her kind-“

“SHE’S DEAD,” Niall exclaims in frustration and rips away strands of his blonde hair, the brown roots becoming more and more eminent as he does so, and perhaps he is a dick for saying that but he _doesn’t fucking care_ , “LOOK, I’M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, BUT IT’S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS AND SHE HAS ALREADY DECAYED SO I’M SORRY IF I DON’T SEE A GOOD POINT IN THIS HULLABALOO.” James gets ready to protest but Niall will not tolerate such behaviour. “NO, YOU LISTEN TO ME. MY FRIEND – MAYBE MY ONLY ONE – MAY OR MAY NOT BE DEAD OR ABDUCTED BECAUSE HE HAS NOT ANSWERED ME SINCE YESTERDAY AND I’VE BEEN CALLING AND TEXTING HIM CONSTANTLY AND I FUCKING HATE HIM, AND I TRULY AM SORRY ABOUT YOUR COUSIN’S CAT BUT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GIVE ME ONE FUCKING MOMENT-“

“Oh, are you talking about Harry?” Celine pipes up from somewhere above and taps Niall on the shoulder as she sends Jonathan an apologetic look.

“Do not withhold fatal information from me,” Niall seethes and cries at the same time, “Celine, I will bite your shoulder if you know something about him that you’re not telling me.”

She is busy comforting the other guy so Niall slaps himself twice and counts to ten nine times. He’s fine. He’s _Zen_. He is the fucking master of everything-

“Niall?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you hear me?”

He blinks and turns back to them slowly with a raised brow. Ignoring all the stares he has received by his tantrum he swallows and whispers, “I beg your pardon?”

“I was just saying,” Celine repeats and ushers away Jacob to go back to work (intense, that shit), “that Harry is waiting at your place with some surprise or whatever.”

“He _skipped work?_ ” Niall hisses and clenches his hands into tight fists which he pounds on his desk repeatedly, creating a sort of melodic pattern that Celine puts to a stop by kicking his shin. “Can you fucking-“

“Niall.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is this only because of the Harry thing or is it because of something else…?”

He shakes his head and swallows thickly. “It’s raining,” he states.

“Observant.”

“Yeah, but, like,” uh, “I’m a _weather person_ ,” he shrugs.

“A…?”

“Have you never heard? Those people that change their mood depending on the weather a bit? You know?”

“Ah, yes I’ve heard.”

“So, anyway, Harry is in my flat?”

Celine hums, nods, and hops on his desk, flattening out her flower immersed skirt. Thunder has started roaring outside.

“And he has a ‘surprise’ for me?”

Another confirming nod from the woman sitting on his papers.

“Yes, I do think that you will be quite pleased knowing what it is,” she murmurs secretively and Niall is this close to cutting the power off to the entire observatory.

“YOU KNOW,” he shouts, “YOU KNOW YOU LITTLE MINX, DON’T YOU?”

“Why yes I do. How did you figure?” she laughs and when Niall raises his fists she jumps on his back and pins him to the ground.

“Can you stop with your karate moves?” he groans and rubs his head miserably.

“It’s not karate, it’s-“

“I. Do not. Care. I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“You see; this is why I like you. You’re so chill and carefree-“

“Oh, and like you aren’t?” she winks and helps him up from the ground with a steady hand. The woman probably has more muscles than he.

“With that said you should probably quit earlier and get back to your home and your friend.”

Niall sighs and pinches his nose harshly.

“Probably.”

“And then you can take me out for coffee or tea.”

“Deal. Now let me skip.”

“You go ahead and skip.”

“Thank you darling,” he makes kissing noises and leans forward to place his lips lightly on her cheeks before dropping the remaining files on their spot and bounding out of the gigantic room with light, jumping steps that leave a thick trail of positive energy behind him.

“Anything for you sweetcheeks.”

When Niall does get home he hears laughter coming from his living room, and it takes about a millisecond for him to realize that there are more people than Harry invading his home with their presence. He kicks off his shoes and shouts an obnoxious “HONEY, I’M HOOOME” before he locks the door behind him and listens carefully for any sort of noise coming from inside the flat. Everything has gone completely silent and still and he is more than just a bit worried.

His first stop is the kitchen, where he observes the signs indicating that tea has been made not all too long ago and the chairs that are pulled out with the empty cups in front on the weathered table. In the living room he finds Harry standing with his arm around someone Niall does most certainly not recognize.

The male has eyes possible warmer and bluer than his own (wow), a short and straight nose that quirks up a little at the end, clothes that somehow matches Harry perfectly like they’re salt and pepper – a matching set of two that are stocked together in packages shipped worldwide. The man is smiling tentatively and Niall sees Harry squeeze his waist in assurance. So, the man snakes a hand free from Harry’s side to shake Niall’s hand mildly and look him in the eye.

“Hi,” he says, “Harry’s been telling me quite a lot about you.” It should be impolite because Niall is still in the dark as to _who_ this actually is, and although he has believable thoughts he does not want to hold onto those in case he’s wrong. That could be embarrassing.

“Yeah,” Harry coughs in the background and his eyes are too fucking fond for Niall to look at without cringing, “I figured we could drop by today and get properly introduced, but then you were at work-“

“Yes, and where the fuck were you?” he snaps in mock offense, because it really isn’t that big of a deal. Surely.

“That’s what I’m going to-“

“Enough excuses Styles,” Niall waves his hand tiredly as a grin spreads across his face and he slings an arm around the taller’s free shoulder, “I’ve missed you.”

“It’s been less than a week-“

“ _More,_ may I remind you, and it’s not every day that I do miss you so shut up and be happy.”

The man without a name smiles and peeks up at Harry who plants a kiss in his hair. Niall’s eyes widen comically. Woah.

“Niall,” he says, and it’s like a private little ceremony with the way he speaks, “this is Louis, my boyfriend.”

And holy fucking shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a playlist for this mini-fic which I will write down now in the order I think works best for the story in case you fancy a listen, and I want to thank you for taking your time to read this. It makes me a very happy person :)
> 
> 1\. Bullet With Butterfly Wings - The Smashing Pumpkins  
> 2\. Lady Stardust - Lisa Miskovsky  
> 3\. Northern Lights - Kate Boy  
> 4\. Counting Stars - OneRepublic  
> 5\. The Show Must Go On - Queen  
> 6\. Starlight - Muse  
> 7\. Heart Out - The 1975  
> 8\. Chocolate - The 1975  
> 9\. Money - Pink Floyd  
> 10\. Baby's Romance - Chris Garneau  
> 11\. Somethin' Stupid - Frank & Nancy Sinatra  
> 12\. Breaking Down - Acoustic - Florence + The Machine  
> 13\. Cherub Rock - The Smashing Pumpkins  
> 14\. Alone - Heart  
> 15\. I Miss You - blink-182  
> 16\. Reptilia - The Strokes  
> 17\. Junk of the Heart - The Kooks  
> 18\. E.T. - Katy Perry  
> 19\. Losing Sleep - John Newman  
> 20\. On Our Way - The Royal Concept  
> 21\. Bonfire Heart - James Blunt  
> 22\. Neutron Star Collision [Love is Forever] - Muse  
> 23\. Astrologen - Darin (original by Magnus Uggla) which is the reason that this fic exists in the first place
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading. I can't tell you how much that means to me :D


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